Five Poems | Jennifer Hill
POETRY
6/24/20243 min read
Nonfuture Tense Portrait
Ah, lucky to be here, at last.
Thank you.
My hair cries into my neck.
My collarbone plows the air.
My pelvis is a chemical burn.
My feet insist on the ground.
As soon as I’ve arrived,
I love all your faces
and I want to leave.
Ah, lucky to be here, at last.
Thank you.
I count my breaths at night.
I ignore my heartbeat during the day.
I shave off what no one wants.
I blend in with my blood type.
As soon as I’ve arrived,
I will leave.
I love your face.
I’m sorry.
Believe me, assume,
I’m embarrassed by all of me,
every drippy syllable.
When I read me, all my muscles
tense, sphincter clamps shut.
I should have said eyelid,
not asshole.
I’m not a nasty person,
I could be your sister,
and I know I am
lucky to be here, at last.
Thank you for this body of work.
I will finish.
I have finished.
I will be finished,
and return
so you’ll hear
my footsteps
by yesterday.
Malaprop
Somewhere, someone’s tongue
is being cut out so they can’t
say the worm that gets
into the fears of the other side.
It is unseasonably war outside.
All language closes in on strange,
strangle, a burn of roadside tangle
and conglomeration of endings,
the beginnings, you learn,
are crossed wires, an SOS.
Somehow, somewhere,
quelque chose, how do you say
it is so hot my house exhales
ash each mourning.
Je suis si loin de toi.
I'm a nervous shakedown
as I drive to work trying
to recall, now do you say,
Do you have a book of poetry?
The light is red.
I wait.
La lumiere est rouge.
J’attendre.
La lumière est vert.
J’attendre.
A pause caused
by anti-revelation,
un rêve of the head
dreaming of itself
having a dream
about making sense.
This is where it turns
very Americaine as the 18
wheeler careens through
the intersection where
j’attendre.
Or, wait. I waited?
J’ai attendu.
I was waiting?
J’attendais.
Tense wires crossed.
How do you say
I could have been killed
but I was left to live,
vivant aux États-Unis?
My torso is still
attached to my head.
I know it makes no sense,
une mystère,
the colloquial,
it’s just how it is.
We call it a close call,
une énigme criblée,
a riddle riddled
with a kindness of hurt.
Disrememberment
Know neither:
Where you are going
or how to feel.
Recall a morning
without a word.
The long O of silence.
This is how you began —
an unnoticed preface
in an obsolete dictionary
with 88 words for love.
What you should be:
Asking.
What you want to be:
A smaller quantity,
lesser than.
What you are:
Pieces of a whole —
an extravagant head,
all thought and yawp.
Responsibilities.
Know neither:
The long O of preface
An unnoticed silence
Recall what you should be asking.
How did you begin to want to be
a word without a morning?
How is thought extravagant?
Neither know feeling
or going. Remember less, be all
words for love. Don’t say love.
Stand in the middle of obsolete —
just so. Want lesser still:
o.
Slef Portrait
For today, I’m alive in this inky flask
with its ingenious flatness of aging.
Is it useful noting toenail fungus?
All ten tunes that foul my finale
as I fade, tire of tenuous flings.
Oh the ingenious flatness of aging,
a sanguine flout in the flaky face,
the mind’s sky full of asks that flay.
It’s a blessed kink, a jink to rash over,
caulk every scar, every scare.
Oh, the ingenious flatness of aging.
Did I mention my fat knuckles,
a set that lacks, a fact that sets
me to sulk? I have a knack for funk
now, less fun than flu or the lankest fuck.
Oh ingenious flatness of aging —
I’m alive in this inky flask. For today.
Textbook Subtext
It’s a long time coming, you said.
Say something without saying it.
Let croci bloom in the Broca.
Keep it simple, for the pollination
of hesitation. Wait, then work without
knowing what it is you’re doing —
one eye sees, one is closed, and the third
creates.
Dig for months in silence for a bitter root
inside of you, let your nail beds cake
with the dirt of your thoughts
until any point you once had
is clammy as a halved worm.
There it is. See it glistening,
all sun-smacked and writhing?
Bring it up now.
It’s a long time coming.
Jennifer Hill is a poet, circus performer, and arts educator who has worked with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for 23 years. You can find her at actsofjennius.com