[You are a pool of oil]

posted Jun 23, 2015

You are a pool of oil, very calm     Very still
and very calm on the cool and cooling floor
I slip around the edges; the edges creep in
An animal, I creep until you gather up and go

I like the stone wall, it does its job     It doesn't move
for fifty years     For a hundred years, the wall waits
regarding sun     absorbing wind     It waits
for things to happen     Which do or do not occur

People say, Don't run with the blade     People say
Cut away from the body, sew away from those
who hold the cloth     I could do that     I could, but
people forget to say     The last stitch is through the nose

Jennifer Moore is the author of The Veronica Maneuver (forthcoming, The University of Akron Press), and What the Spigot Said (High5 Press). Poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Best New Poets, Columbia Poetry Review, Barrow Street and elsewhere, and criticism and reviews in Jacket2, Spoke Too Soon, and The Offending Adam. A native of the Seattle area, Jennifer is an assistant professor of creative writing at Ohio Northern University and lives in Defiance, Ohio.

We’ve published two more poems by Moore: “[If I suggest a toy for you to play with]” and “[A wolf carved a hole of a web].”