Laura M. Nesbit – Two Poems


Laura M. Nesbit

Two Poems

Return, my Fingers’ Shepherd


i sleep in litter    stars gleam
like forks   near an outlet,

crystal radio we coiled the copper onto-
               its songs broken,       hunchbacks

in the rain-tacked wheat field,
                            sits quiet now.
scientists sketching fill my dreams,

         their pencils’ scribbles sound like bees.      here

                                                 onion-weltered air, onion-flesh
                                                                      the pigeons scatter.

they are sketching Venus,  puzzle over bright patch
           as peak     or   sun   in cloud,
                     coats dust-pocked like moon.        once, they knew,

smiled in unison; bed full of papers rustled tender.
                  i dreamt a bouquet of filaments.

clutching glass for their lovers, bowerbirds pass.
if finger tips
       solder just so,
                wires will tell
                                the current Venus’s heat makes.

i rise to dishwater rain.         your heat like Venus’s,

i solder reveries     avoid one
                                 your mouth    turned sugar    from boot soles.


Stove: Mania, Math and Aftermath.

                      – words taken from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

hills of sugar nudge stove door-
burnt grains- quintillion; wheatless, groundless,
spill- rustle lecture-

I saw the bay flame with clover
Came next day, found only snow-

sky rained milk- i’d just linen
to catch it- fever fever catching wringing-
found it water-

window after window, eggs smile
from others’ tables-

sugar grains muscle into my bed sheets-
their teeth muzzle unsleep to boil-

stove loafing in sugarhouse, put out-
snow sweats in the wheatless,
woodless presence.

windless nights- hear it creak.

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