I wonder if you'll be
there when I turn around.
You’re peeing in the woods and I keep guard; I watch
two geese cut the river together without sound.
To you most everything is private. Raw and locked,
you're peeing in the woods and I keep guard. I watch,
vaguely
paranoid, for any sign of danger
to you. Most everything is private, raw, and locked—
it’s a damn urgent matter why. We're here—strange, or
vaguely paranoid for any sign of danger
and that other thing of which we cannot speak.
It's a damn urgent matter. Why we're here stranger
than how I'll point out their black telepathic beaks,
but not that other thing of which we cannot speak.
Nothing more apt like a hot, single-minded knife
than how I'll point out their black telepathic beaks.
You'll say, "You just like them because they mate for life,"
nothing more apt. Like a hot, single-minded knife,
two geese cut the river together without sound.
You'll say, "You just like them because they mate for life."
I wonder if you'll be there when I turn around.
Jen Coleman dropped out of high school. She holds a MFA from
Hollins University, where she was awarded a full fellowship. Her work has
recently appeared in Mêlée Live, Four and Twenty, The
Jackson Hole Review, Right Hand Pointing, and Buddhist
Poetry Review.She currently teaches English at Lynchburg College and
lives in Roanoke, Virginia, with her two Manx cats.
