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Spring 1984 • Vol. VI No. 2 • A Gathering of Poems |

Exhalation

By Paul Jenkins

Clouds converging from opposite directions:
the clothes on the clothesline can’t find a rhythm.
No chance anyone’s arriving today.

The dead are never coming again,
not in this language or any other—
not even the one that grants them the familiar.

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Dark Water

By Paul Jenkins

Mattress slung over the windowsill to dry: fat white tongue lapping at the brightness. Why do some sleepers wake up feeling empty and others inexplicably full? Family of eight in […]

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All Souls’ Day

By Paul Jenkins

Dancers: the saddest of all the artists. The body with its two words—defy and submit. The bells have not stopped reeling since dawn, contradicting each other, suddenly agreeing, Already have […]

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