December 11th: Deborah Poe

Death and the Woman (Tod und Frau)

object exactly the size of any space
we occupy, shadowed against
a shadow as it is. if this is
to be being and to be being
in it irremediably without
refuse materiality how
do we remain silent, left
for deaf, how do we occupy
silence, how do we leave, do we

             -Jen Hofer, from One

muscle, bones, sinew—back’s arch leg’s fierce tendons

toes grounded behind the body—first figure, Mother—

as if to reject apparition or sprint, knee

lunged forward

skeleton—mocking monster

leg bone defies the lurch

arms bound behind by scaffolding

costas stacked upon skinless figure

second leg arrests Mother’s pitch

head reared back, the abnormal stretch

neck bared to the inevitable

child you climb a desperate branch—torso
of the body—hands reach above breasts

this gaze’s impossibility

shadow of three bodies, one violent mass—

your small right foot in the resilient light

Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collections Elements (Stockport Flats Press 2010) and Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords 2008). Deborah’s writing is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Fact-Simile Magazine, Peaches & Bats, Jacket, Sidebrow and Colorado Review. Deborah Poe is fiction editor of Drunken Boat and guest curator of Trickhouse’s “Experiment" door 2010/2011. For more information, visit www.deborahpoe.com.