Beneath the Highway, Between Two Nights — Poetry by Emma Bolden

 

Under the shudder of winter I made
my peace with the train, its innuendos
and arrivals, its violent keening
and smoke. When I looked past

the wall I could see where I was
not. I could see against the horizon
a smattering of faces. They had their order
and their number. I was smiling

as a vase. I was happy
as a cardigan. I was always over-
hearing a private chat
and rain. When I began driving

it was not towards but against
the realization of each mile
I had privileged as much
as the silence that mossed

itself into my lungs. An overhang
of freesia and the dark ecstasy
of forgiveness, which is a needle ticking
up speed to speed to speed.

 

~  ~  ~

Emma Bolden is the author of two full-length collections of poetry: medi(t)ations (Noctuary Press, 2016) and Maleficae (GenPop Books, 2013). She’s also the author of four chapbooks of poetry — How to Recognize a Lady  (Toadlily Press); The Mariner’s Wife, (Finishing Line Press); The Sad Epistles (Dancing Girl Press); This Is Our Hollywood (The Chapbook) – and one nonfiction chapbook – Geography V (Winged City Press). A Barthelme Prize and Spoon River Poetry Review Editor’s Prize winner, her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry andThe Best Small Fictions as well as such journals as The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Conduit, and Copper Nickel.