Dividing the Yellow Banks
September sun pokes
through ashen sky
streaked with pale brown,
its weak glow like tarnished silver
on the San Joaquin River.
The current cuts through layers of sediment,
revealing the same epochs of time
on either side of hardened soil:
off-white, maize, tan,
then sepia just above the water.
Will this fluid blade slice
the whole earth in two,
each half to float in separate orbits
till the sun dies,
pulling them into its black hole?
Ready for Halloween
Caked with soot,
a giant pumpkin balloon
looms over Big Lots.
It invites shoppers to buy candy corn,
chocolate ghosts, strings of orange lights,
stuffed black cats, witch decorations,
and cheap costumes for kids.
But why try to sell costumes at all?
The whole city of Fresno
masquerades as Pompeii,
with ash on cars, homes,
office buildings, shrubs,
on water in swimming pools.
It drifts to our clothes and hair,
dressing us up
as cremated dead.
Jennifer Fenn has been writing poetry since high school. Her work has been published in seventeen journals, including Song of the San Joaquin, The Orchards, Brevities, Time of Singing, and Tiger’s Eye. She has self-published two chapbooks, Blessings and Song of the Katabatic Wind, as church fundraisers. She has won prizes in contests, most recently the Roadrunner Prize, awarded by the California Federation of Chaparral Poets.
September sun pokes
through ashen sky
streaked with pale brown,
its weak glow like tarnished silver
on the San Joaquin River.
The current cuts through layers of sediment,
revealing the same epochs of time
on either side of hardened soil:
off-white, maize, tan,
then sepia just above the water.
Will this fluid blade slice
the whole earth in two,
each half to float in separate orbits
till the sun dies,
pulling them into its black hole?
Ready for Halloween
Caked with soot,
a giant pumpkin balloon
looms over Big Lots.
It invites shoppers to buy candy corn,
chocolate ghosts, strings of orange lights,
stuffed black cats, witch decorations,
and cheap costumes for kids.
But why try to sell costumes at all?
The whole city of Fresno
masquerades as Pompeii,
with ash on cars, homes,
office buildings, shrubs,
on water in swimming pools.
It drifts to our clothes and hair,
dressing us up
as cremated dead.
Jennifer Fenn has been writing poetry since high school. Her work has been published in seventeen journals, including Song of the San Joaquin, The Orchards, Brevities, Time of Singing, and Tiger’s Eye. She has self-published two chapbooks, Blessings and Song of the Katabatic Wind, as church fundraisers. She has won prizes in contests, most recently the Roadrunner Prize, awarded by the California Federation of Chaparral Poets.