Jenn Blair

VOW

Call it the starting over again place.
All gone but what once was, horizon
blue unspooling, still unspoiled thread.
Established vineyards back to loose
seeds tumbling in worn pockets.

You might call it mother’s cracked
mirror, her three younger sisters
falling out in the shatter, summer dove
cote restricting, last feather pressed.

I might call it the doll’s glass cracked
eye no longer trailing–in her velvet
clutch the unswalloweable fact: she
never cared for me, though for hours
I carried her, whispered and tended.

Call it the pyre where the old selves
finally gather, some nobly climbing up
others more reluctant to fling them
selves in the flame. Call it the last
first thing we learn: our bones all
we have to see by til morning comes.

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Jenn Blair is from Yakima, WA. She has published in Copper Nickel, New South, Blood Orange Review, Segue, Superstition Review, Cold Mountain Review, and the Tulane Review among others. Her chapbook ‘All Things are Ordered’ is out from Finishing Line Press.