Now the sounds twist in your ears,
all the verbs wrong—present
and you tensed in the past,
no word for future, tomorrow.
How to translate this plainest hour,
grief’s land mines plotted
across the hours’ winter fields,
ambush planted under every step.
Some days, a journey. Some nights,
a fight through foreign dreams.
One breath, one word at a time, here,
now, yes. A phrasebook, color-coded.
One jay in the pine, turning blue
away from gravity, into a jewel.
A bench where the fountain mutters
and children laugh from the swings.
It flashes back to you in short bits,
in syllables you learn again,
a winged pleasure, a relief,
the feeling in your hands.
About Joannie Stangeland
Joannie Stangeland has written two full-length collections: In Both Hands and Into the Rumored Spring (both from Ravenna Press). She’s also the author of two poetry chapbooks, and her poems have appeared in Off the Coast, Crab Creek Review, and Hubbub, and other journals. The rest of the time, Joannie writes about technology and wine.
