The History of a Lake Never Drowns
Julia Cohen
dancing girl press, 2008
Julia Cohen has chapbooks out or forthcoming with horse less press, H_NGM_N B__KS, Small Fires Press (with Mathias Svalina), Transmission Press (with MS), and Greying Ghost Press (with MS). She lives deep in Brooklyn and blogs at www.onthemessiersideofneat.blogspot.com.
There Was a Bridge of Tattered Rugs
I've cut the rope-swing, carved scars in a tree
I've taken a glass bottle and shingled its sides
I've taken some velvet leg and tossed it in the gully of my bed
I've wasted quilt
A nightgown soaked in milk
The bassinet sleeping in the greenhouse
A boat-shaped spider crabbing the high corner
What have I done to this world
The fairness of snap peas
Did that sound leave me
I’ve tattered a rug to bridge the embankment
but the cry came from below
I’ve leeched from and leeched from
and left what I could no longer hold
No refuge is permanent
The human voice
Pelts of my name
sometimes.
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