Labels from the Field Museum: Poems — Denise Low

Denise Low

 

Watermarks
xxxxxxx(Kenneth Lee Irby, 30 July 2015)

You no longer “care” for anything to eat
except sweet brandy

xxxxxxA last bottle,
xxxxxxyes, I bought it,
xxxxxxand I’m not sorry

You sip
slumped sideways on the sofa
xxxxxxbracket of spine tilting
fever-red cheeks
xxxxxxthe marionette lines barely
xxxxxxXXXxxholding you up

long-sleeved denim shirt
xxxxxxover skin so thin
blue veins shine
xxxxxxXXXxxbones jut the collar

xxxxxxsoon will come the morphine angel

*

Like a fool I bring
Japanese fairy tales—
xxxxxxmy father’s book
xxxxxxrich slick mildewy paper

Your overgrown thumbnail slits pages open

Through your hands tumble bright
xxxxxxpersimmons
xxxxxxred foxes
xxxxxxyellow-lantern moons

You tell me your mother’s last words
xxxxxx“Are the plants watered?”

And you breathe to me,
yes the breath labored,
xxxxxx“This is, as they say, a last gasp”

*

A round moon rises overhead
Scorpio-red.

The bloody mud knot of your heart
xxxxxxloosens jagged dithyrambs.

For good-bye I lay hands
on your blanket-swaddled chest
xxxxxxfeel it, that swell
measure unspindling

§

Eskimo Curlew, 1891

xxxxxxxAfter a photograph by Terry Evans
xxxxxxx“I ask the curlew for cinnamon-barred feathers”

“Eskimo Curlew”
crossed legs Arctic blue, bound.

“Field Columbian Museum.
Shot over Emporia, Kansas.”

Tender down molds
the throat. The sharp-spear

beak pierces vanilla-white
wood-fiber backdrop.

A wisp of shadow
half-moons the body:

curve of lunar eclipse, folded wing,
curve of expired breath.

Past tense before I was born:
“They nested in Arctic tundra,”

says my dead father’s
Field Guide to the Birds,

the voice: “an oft repeated, soft,
mellow, though clear whistle”

or “the wind whistling
through a ship’s rigging.”

“Flocks migrated through the Plains”
when he was a young man holding

his Peterson’s and sighting “under-
wings conspicuously cinnamon buff.”

§

Labels from The Field Museum:  Cardinals

xxxxxxxxAfter photographs by Terry Evans

9 July 1881
xxxxxBush on this day: collector
xxxxxat Blue Island, Cook Co.
xxxxxone ♀ female buff-
xxxxxand tangerine-feathered

December 11, 1883
xxxxxwithin the specimen drawer
xxxxxone iridescent crimson ♂ male
xxxxxneck twisted to uncertain sight

September 16, 1893
xxxxxMuseum founded
xxxxxto house collections assembled

25 February 1907
xxxxxMound City, Ill.
xxxxx♀ female still plump
xxxxxpeach streaks across sky-gray breast

Unmarked date:
xxxxxWright at Dane Co., Ill.
xxxxxanother ♂ male
xxxxxwith the finest head crest

Undated
xxxxx♀ female fell from nest
xxxxxat Orrington and Garrett Ave.:
xxxxxdesiccated, ashy brown,
xxxxxa solid ghost collapsed

December 27, 1913
xxxxx♂ male caught at Salamonia, Indiana
xxxxxnow a pressed faded feather rose

Indecipherable dates:
xxxxx47 Cardinalis cardinalis specimens
xxxxxeyes sightless behind
xxxxxwhite-cotton eye sockets

July 2002
xxxxx“The loss of these living
xxxxxthings is tempered
xxxxxby a quiet tenderness”

—Denise Low

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Denise Low, 2^nd Kansas Poet Laureate, is award-winning author of 25 books of prose and poetry, including The Turtle’s Beating Heart: One Family’s Story of Delaware Survival (forthcoming from Univesity of Nebraska Press), Jackalope (short fiction, Red Mountain Press); Mélange Block (poetry, Red Mountain Press); Ghost Stories (Woodley Press, a Ks. Notable Book; The Circle -Best Native American Books); and Natural Theologies: Essays (The Backwaters Press). Low is past board president of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs. She blogs, reviews, and co-publishes Mammoth Publications. She teaches professional workshops nationally as well as classes for Baker University’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies. Her MFA is from Wichita State University and PhD is from the University of Kansas. She has British Isles, German, Delaware (Lenape/Munsee), and Cherokee heritage.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/denise-low

http://deniselow.blogspot.com

 

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