Organizing a Quiet Origin

Point to the beginning—
hyacinths on the bedside table.
I pay to identify patterns of thinking:
patchwork, hexagon, straight
lines along this paper.
Smoke compounds; I lift
the pan, complain about a tight
muscle, pull the stems that could keep
their shape without water, rehydrate
every bud I’ve ever loved.

An Improper Confession

To be clear, it’s not like anyone was looking.
She woke covered in a slick cool of sweat. Another
load of laundry. And who would believe her anyway,
cycling every thought from high school? The counselor
pulled her out of class and said once you tell me,
you can’t keep it. Her hazy memory—a fickle experiment.
She can’t clean another damn thing,
fold, re-fold, leave it in the dryer for a week,
flip the fan on and off, on and off.
The other side of the pillow—new and cold.
Eyes hot on the back of her shoulders, a small
instrument, a violin trapped
in her throat. Held to the light,
most words present debatable.

Anniversary

It was a thing between surety
and nightfall: birthday geraniums,
pink elephants. Then, all the calendars
filled with broken dates.
I read every cookbook
in the bathtub. A preference
for recipes of inherited
sentiment seared in a cast iron,
seasoned in salt, covered with mud
and straw. The new animal
cries at the door of morning.
I’ve never been comfortable
under the rule of organization, bladder
controlling everything else. I imagine
dawn caws softer once the song
breaks in the front yard. Remarkable,
that chicken breast marinating in gold.

Author’s Note: This collaboration began during a midwestern power outage. We considered our friendship, experiences with queer love, and relationship to place. Each poem was co-written through a series of one-line responses.

Amanda Maret Scharf is a poet from Los Angeles. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She serves as Poetry Editor for The Journal. More at amandamaretscharf.com

Hannah Smith serves as the Managing Editor of The Journal. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Nimrod, Cimarron, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere. Find her online at hannahsmith.net