AUGUST SONG OF FLIGHT
You unshuckable masterpiece of conviction and collapse, I shiver
in the light of your particular eclipse. You have a way
of pickling my tongue and rubbing out all my best
learned lessons: now, is when I walk away, now, is when
I knit my lips together and keep myself clothed, oh,
but the plummy succor of your mouth
and the fractured shadow of your breath
raking hesitation from my limbs: here is how
I ruin in a field and flatten the cornstalks. Madman, you call
the full force of my attention into your palms that follow
the swoon of my jaw. I am a foolish animal. I should burn
for this. I do: for mischief and skin and the sight
of the night’s bruised submission to morning. How much
of what I lie down with do I take with me when I rise?
Jennifer Funk is a native Californian, but believes she has enough salt to be a proper New Englander (one day). A graduate of Bennington College and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, she is currently enrolled in the counseling psychology program at Lesley University (she loves self-transformation…and debt). She has received scholarships from The Frost Place and The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and has been a Pushcart Prize nominee. You can find her work at SWWIM, Four Way Review and elsewhere on the interwebs.
The Boiler 