THREE POEMS by Christine Gosnay

Grand Teton

A limber pine wave gives way to woodsmoke.
I am deeply interrogated
and I am not understood. 

The sun hits the logs 
and plays with their legs and shoulders,
pushing away their modesty.

The man who boxes my firewood
has eyes three blue meters deep. 
His birthday has come with the snow in July.

There are forceful creatures here
and I will not surprise in the dusk.
I swing my broken locket for a bell. 

In the tent village, a woman is bending off her jeans
on the warm side of the canvas.
My hands rise like two consuls to my lips.

Spring in Aqaba

Something far away handles 
the instruments of my death.
But the wine is cold and dry, 

and upon my leg 
I make my hand into your own, 
leaning back to receive my arrogance. 

When this wild grip visits me
there is a vast silk sail
tied to the sky. 

Nacco Junction

The train that passes is three songs long. 
It’s pulling fruits and tractors
to sow a paradise with. 

Into the sun and the heat the dirt rises
and dresses the weeds
with its sweetness.

Everything I can remember here
is a shape that cuts itself into the light
behind it, turning lie into form. 

The tender mountains make a cup
around all this. The kindness
of limiting the eye’s greed.

I try to drag a line from my mind
into this blistered sweep
but it is tangled in the vernal pool

where memory 
stays plunged 
in its watchful surround. 

To my surprise what comes
is a bud so fragile
that blades clip its stem in the dark.