Jennifer K. Sweeney
—
A Story: Banana Slug
Once I was a river among grasses.
Once, a false flower, sweetened
awake. Once I was alive
among dying gingkos.
Once I was leaving all over again.
Once I slid away from my wounds
touching each edge and kissing
it away. Once I asked
Where are we in the song now?
and the sun answered with its teeth.
Moving is a question and moving
is an answer, sometimes they seem
the same and I lose my place.
And moving is swallowing space
and always I never felt the same
surface twice.
Once I asked what is return?
But no air did answer.
Once I was gray with ash
and the stones came for me.
Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of five poetry collections, most recently, Dear Question, with L.I. Henley, from Glass Lyre Press. Other titles include Foxlogic, Fireweed; Little Spells; and James Laughlin Award winner, How to Live on Bread and Music. She teaches poetry at the University of Redlands, in California where she lives with her family. Honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Terrain Poetry Prize, the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, and the Perugia Press Prize. Her poems have recently appeared in About Place, Birdcoat Quarterly, Broadsided, Maine Review, Mom Egg Review, Orion, Plant-Human Quarterly, Rust & Moth, Sixth Finch, The Shore, Solstice, and Waxwing.
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