Monday 20 April 2009

First by Bonnie McClellan

In the first sleep I dream the teapot,

Awaken,
The worm turns.
Female swallows preen their dun shifts
whispering excitedly in-nested.
Apple blossoms blow a narrow stream
of incandescent, undawned light
through the fractured hairline of some internal expansion that,
open eyes, scrutinizing this darkness,
pursuing, never find.

........I turn.

In the second sleep I dream the tea that fills it,
The crisped black leaf of a scorpion in the bed:
With foehn breath through pursed lips
I shift it the mattress’ length.
Chased down by these airy blows it settles
in the foothills of the laundry.

........Awake.

I drink coffee.
Birds are getting on with their day.
Someone left the sun
burning all night over the Pacific;
restless, it begins its second twelve-hour shift.
Apple blossoms have burnt out,
The whole day rests
for the resoldering of the filaments
So they will glow again at dusk.




Bonnie McClellan, Italy

1 comment:

Crafty Green Poet said...

Bonnie McClellan is a poet from northeastern Texas who has been living in Italy for the last two years. She enjoys trying to translate what she sees in a country almost suffocated by its own history into the broad, open cadences of Engllish. If anyplace is weirder and more unexpected than Texas it's got to be provincial Italy. My work has been published in the following places: Paper publications: CCWriter:Magazine of creative nonfiction, short stories, poetry and Art, Summer 2006; Duck Soup: Magazine of Creative Expression, Fall 2006; Versitude, May, August and November of 1998. Web publications: DotTom Cafe (2000-2009 various dates); bonniemcclellan.wordpress.com (her own website with poetry and essays and some translations).