Jennifer Martelli
By August
they’re already hanging witch
dolls from the eaves and the ledges
of the homes in Salem
and from the windows of shops where I buy
local goods: waxy combs, balms,
and a small owl
candle with a long wick. A dragonfly
leads me past a hedgerow
of autumn olives. August
yields her sun low, lower,
lower each day. I curve
into the fall, lick the parts that hurt
most, my wounded willow bark, my
animal skin. Last night, in a dream, this:
I cradled a corn cob doll to me,
urged it to nurse the nothing that’s left,
became less sad, less of a conduit.
Can I deconstruct an asexual life
and call this home? Can I not allow
touch and still love?
Come morning, I pondered the exclusion
of queen bees in fall. My hair
was a willow nest of cold blue eggs
and I could smell the wine from the small
apples that fell, rotten and bruised,
to the ground below my window.
All night, I’d simmered on low
shimmery citrus rinds--
a tea I could drink, a balm
boiled down. Come, mourning, take
the inch of light: orbit wider farther
away. My back arcs into place. Out back,
tomatoes choke, thick on their vines. At last,
the pepper plants have turned deep purple. Fall
curves here, a pelted thing, amber.
You have to see it, the light.
they’re already hanging witch
dolls from the eaves and the ledges
of the homes in Salem
and from the windows of shops where I buy
local goods: waxy combs, balms,
and a small owl
candle with a long wick. A dragonfly
leads me past a hedgerow
of autumn olives. August
yields her sun low, lower,
lower each day. I curve
into the fall, lick the parts that hurt
most, my wounded willow bark, my
animal skin. Last night, in a dream, this:
I cradled a corn cob doll to me,
urged it to nurse the nothing that’s left,
became less sad, less of a conduit.
Can I deconstruct an asexual life
and call this home? Can I not allow
touch and still love?
Come morning, I pondered the exclusion
of queen bees in fall. My hair
was a willow nest of cold blue eggs
and I could smell the wine from the small
apples that fell, rotten and bruised,
to the ground below my window.
All night, I’d simmered on low
shimmery citrus rinds--
a tea I could drink, a balm
boiled down. Come, mourning, take
the inch of light: orbit wider farther
away. My back arcs into place. Out back,
tomatoes choke, thick on their vines. At last,
the pepper plants have turned deep purple. Fall
curves here, a pelted thing, amber.
You have to see it, the light.
--
Jennifer Martelli is the author of The Queen of Queens and My Tarantella, named a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Tahoma Review, and elsewhere. She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow and co-poetry editor for Mom Egg Review.
Jennifer Martelli is the author of The Queen of Queens and My Tarantella, named a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Tahoma Review, and elsewhere. She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow and co-poetry editor for Mom Egg Review.