What Rope Is For
If she lived in this world,
no longer would she murmur
about her appetite for Wyoming--
rocks, feathers, an open hand,
a conjuring. Her desire
is flamingo, a train ticket
to Aberdeen, the shiny midnight
of Hollywood starlight on paper.
And Wyoming. What she has
is a campaign button, leftover
bread crusts, a length of rope
knotted in place, its other end
circling. If she clutches its swing,
perhaps abrading her idle
hands, then she might ride
the arc high, unfist her grip,
hurl herself into the tall
plains, ranging that wide
horizon, filling herself with the glint
of minerals, flash of kites,
the sated life of rock and feather.
The Thing Itself
for Kim
You tell me of your brother’s
stroke, the sharp swerve
of his path. You will drive
all day to see him.
I want to join you,
to confide as we did in college
when life was a pointed question,
when raw feeling couldn’t
walk a straight line.
Now life has been sanded
down for refinishing,
too dull to cast its spell,
too self-absorbed
to mark our craving for amazement.
We struggle to taste salt,
to weep for the thing itself.
Still, the years pulse
And spin, a helix, a curve
in space. And we risk
loving it, the fruit, pit
and all, as we exalt
in the wonder of breath, the story’s
climax, the throb of loss,
the tang of summer’s succulent
first ripe peach.
Postcard from the Mother Ghost
Hammer yourself a ladder.
Lean it against the familiar,
and climb like deep-rooted
squash vines through daylight
and blue-white heat.
Rise into twilight, its pockets
emptied of fireflies. Do not
worry that you’ll vanish,
that you’re alone. Let
the ladder lift you beyond
the heavy face of night.
Turn the postcard over.
See the peonies I’ve brushed
into bloom, how they curve
like hands. In the pale life
that comes, there is no
climbing—only the heart’s
circulation of time and desire.
Only a sweep of words,
sheen of petal and leaf,
the way dandelion fuzz ascends--
the way it doubles back, like prayer.
Annette Sisson’s poems can be found in Birmingham Poetry Review, Rust and Moth, The Citron Review, The Lascaux Review, Typishly, One, and many other journals. Her book, Small Fish in High Branches, was published by Glass Lyre Press in May 2022—her chapbook, A Casting Off, by Finishing Line in 2019. She was a Mark Strand Scholar for the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference and 2020 BOAAT Writing Fellow. Among other contest placements, she won The Porch Writers’ Collective’s 2019 poetry prize—and was shortlisted for the 2021 Fish Poetry Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Frontier New Voices contest. http://annettesisson.com
If she lived in this world,
no longer would she murmur
about her appetite for Wyoming--
rocks, feathers, an open hand,
a conjuring. Her desire
is flamingo, a train ticket
to Aberdeen, the shiny midnight
of Hollywood starlight on paper.
And Wyoming. What she has
is a campaign button, leftover
bread crusts, a length of rope
knotted in place, its other end
circling. If she clutches its swing,
perhaps abrading her idle
hands, then she might ride
the arc high, unfist her grip,
hurl herself into the tall
plains, ranging that wide
horizon, filling herself with the glint
of minerals, flash of kites,
the sated life of rock and feather.
The Thing Itself
for Kim
You tell me of your brother’s
stroke, the sharp swerve
of his path. You will drive
all day to see him.
I want to join you,
to confide as we did in college
when life was a pointed question,
when raw feeling couldn’t
walk a straight line.
Now life has been sanded
down for refinishing,
too dull to cast its spell,
too self-absorbed
to mark our craving for amazement.
We struggle to taste salt,
to weep for the thing itself.
Still, the years pulse
And spin, a helix, a curve
in space. And we risk
loving it, the fruit, pit
and all, as we exalt
in the wonder of breath, the story’s
climax, the throb of loss,
the tang of summer’s succulent
first ripe peach.
Postcard from the Mother Ghost
Hammer yourself a ladder.
Lean it against the familiar,
and climb like deep-rooted
squash vines through daylight
and blue-white heat.
Rise into twilight, its pockets
emptied of fireflies. Do not
worry that you’ll vanish,
that you’re alone. Let
the ladder lift you beyond
the heavy face of night.
Turn the postcard over.
See the peonies I’ve brushed
into bloom, how they curve
like hands. In the pale life
that comes, there is no
climbing—only the heart’s
circulation of time and desire.
Only a sweep of words,
sheen of petal and leaf,
the way dandelion fuzz ascends--
the way it doubles back, like prayer.
Annette Sisson’s poems can be found in Birmingham Poetry Review, Rust and Moth, The Citron Review, The Lascaux Review, Typishly, One, and many other journals. Her book, Small Fish in High Branches, was published by Glass Lyre Press in May 2022—her chapbook, A Casting Off, by Finishing Line in 2019. She was a Mark Strand Scholar for the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference and 2020 BOAAT Writing Fellow. Among other contest placements, she won The Porch Writers’ Collective’s 2019 poetry prize—and was shortlisted for the 2021 Fish Poetry Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Frontier New Voices contest. http://annettesisson.com
