local_library Winter White Earth

by Allison Jenks

Published in Issue No. 4 ~ July, 1996

Our instruments fit
below the floor and
Beasts live in the ceiling
Looking to recover the

Spaces between our houses.
that need less light.

So tired of riding the white
streets,

This session goes on
Soaking cold winters never told me
where we lost a solar day of confidence.

I have no way to let
My destinations with you
unfold easily

Documents of all I’ve learned unbind
Useless to me now.
I never was and am not believing
in consistent happiness.

This evening measures this feeling

No ceiling space between our souls
or even our cities

There’s a storm pouring and I
beat it every morning
Just in the way you go
Backwards or ahead

Moving unlike
a child or a man
but like someone with no age,
Unconcerned with time
Sure that most of your struggles are
in the past.

Brilliantly grasped in detail.
Falling only into moments with
empty light to fill.

Living generously

Generating the power of multiple lives.
Until it’s the perfect time to leave
and nothing for you to give up

That could make you cry.

I wonder how many souls are inside you and
what they’re like.
the world is painted white when you come

All weak elements are burnt out
Ready for the Milky way
It’s not about making you speak with
Lying distance and speed

The count down has been mistreated
It’s the only way to get through this
powerless road in one winter
Caress of destination.

You called me last winter
Never told me the curtains are on
when pure emotion works through you
Intensely shadowing a body with
every possible muscle pressed.

I hear from you what I think I’ve heard
Only because I’ve said it myself.

The entity of balance
is what you’ve sent
crawling through me

I sit on its back
Facing the torments of my youth
That led me to this
serene bone of time.

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Allison Jenks' poems have appeared in : New Orleans Review, Art Times, Wisconsin Review, American Literary Review, and Midwest Poetry Review. She was a James A. Michener fellow, awarded by John Balaban, at the University of Miami's M.F.A. program, where she was Editor In Chief of Mangrove.