Hobble Creek Review
| Angie Macri |
Conflagration
As careless as the sun on gold sandstone,
the light tonight comes back as heat into our flesh
under Jupiter’s moons. They orbit
as always, taciturn as any body, as any judge,
in the quiet, steady conflagration of heaven.
Pearl crescents common in the asters,
satyrs and nymphs in the grasses,
their muscles must be warm to fly,
not so different than you and I. Like us,
the sun was born from shockwaves.
We have been through winter now, its oyster shell,
its gloves, your love in my curtained rooms.
We learned shame like nets that kept us
day to day, away from the coronas of the stars.
It must be different now and open to the sun
that grows all things, virgin’s bower in ten-foot vines,
white avens, dame’s rocket from hesperis,
arethusa and healall. We have gone from flowstones
to hardwood overstory. You who once hung
the moon must now understand the sun.
Song for Simile
We ramp onto the freeway, past two billboards for banks,
an accident lawyer, and Paper Moon, where the girls’ lips
part with the whites of their eyes above the whites of their teeth.
You point out a helicopter and skyscrapers that you’ve named
the giant’s stairs. At a red light, you ask what’s wrong
with that tree. It’s a light pole, with staples strung
into its skinned core as far as arms can reach. You study
the red-eyed photos of lost cats and dogs. Are they lonely?
you ask. I say no, they’ve been found, although of course
I don’t know. Years ago but like yesterday, you chanted,
like spoons. I didn’t know what you meant
until I followed your fingers to the streetlights, like spoons,
stuck on their ends in the earth until you found them there.
As careless as the sun on gold sandstone,
the light tonight comes back as heat into our flesh
under Jupiter’s moons. They orbit
as always, taciturn as any body, as any judge,
in the quiet, steady conflagration of heaven.
Pearl crescents common in the asters,
satyrs and nymphs in the grasses,
their muscles must be warm to fly,
not so different than you and I. Like us,
the sun was born from shockwaves.
We have been through winter now, its oyster shell,
its gloves, your love in my curtained rooms.
We learned shame like nets that kept us
day to day, away from the coronas of the stars.
It must be different now and open to the sun
that grows all things, virgin’s bower in ten-foot vines,
white avens, dame’s rocket from hesperis,
arethusa and healall. We have gone from flowstones
to hardwood overstory. You who once hung
the moon must now understand the sun.
Song for Simile
We ramp onto the freeway, past two billboards for banks,
an accident lawyer, and Paper Moon, where the girls’ lips
part with the whites of their eyes above the whites of their teeth.
You point out a helicopter and skyscrapers that you’ve named
the giant’s stairs. At a red light, you ask what’s wrong
with that tree. It’s a light pole, with staples strung
into its skinned core as far as arms can reach. You study
the red-eyed photos of lost cats and dogs. Are they lonely?
you ask. I say no, they’ve been found, although of course
I don’t know. Years ago but like yesterday, you chanted,
like spoons. I didn’t know what you meant
until I followed your fingers to the streetlights, like spoons,
stuck on their ends in the earth until you found them there.
Angie Macri is a graduate of the M.F.A. program at the University of
Arkansas at Fayetteville . Her poetry has been published in Arts & Letters,
Fugue, Southern Indiana Review, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry,
and was featured in Spoon River Poetry Review. Her manuscript,
Queensware, was recently named a finalist in the Crab Orchard Series in
Poetry First Book Award competition. Another manuscript, Enough for This
Star, is also being considered. For her poetry, Angie was awarded an
individual artist fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council.
Arkansas at Fayetteville . Her poetry has been published in Arts & Letters,
Fugue, Southern Indiana Review, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry,
and was featured in Spoon River Poetry Review. Her manuscript,
Queensware, was recently named a finalist in the Crab Orchard Series in
Poetry First Book Award competition. Another manuscript, Enough for This
Star, is also being considered. For her poetry, Angie was awarded an
individual artist fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council.
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