In The Field Between Us
Molly McCully Brown + Susannah Nevison
Persea Books, 2020
~
It is possible our maker knows we are makerless. What can we do? Pair up, perhaps. Read outwardly, together, this In The Field Between Us, placed so mortally within by poets Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison. Look, I have wanted to write you. But instead I cup my hands by holding this book while elsewhere I clay and call inside its impression of response. Oh body, with your origin stories for mirrors. Oh eye, with your cut of arrival’s winnings. I was wrong to think correspondence would turn one lonely. Here, in a verse predating what is both former and latter, are two as two bringing transport to a standstill. Should I go on? Can I? How pure and wrecked can language be? I can’t say, but start here. There are tools used in…
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Moods for nigh:
Sipped from worship, a mother will hide in her throat the lost paw of thirst. How long are we? No one says loss anymore.
Moods for believable midwestern symbols:
When we realize that water cannot take us to where water lives, every television in Ohio stops what it’s doing to wash a ghost. Our friendless baby calls no one. I am not kind, but put my body between mine and yours.
Lying to the basilisk:
You spoke to me through an egg for so long that the back of my neck changed moons. If I think hard enough, I can still see your mother putting in her mouth the glove her god treated like a baby’s hand. I cook a mirror. I cook for an orphan made of sleep. Will our breath always be the bone that didn’t make it into the wing of thirst? If it’s a boy, pick for an alien a flower. Dogs forget their human year.
~
THE YEAR OUR SON THOUGHT HIS BELLY BUTTON WAS GOING TO EAT HIM
was a fast year, a goldfish
trapped
in a doorknob
kind
of year, our daughter
cut her heels
on the bottom
of a pool
that was there
~
THE YEAR OUR SON THOUGHT HARD ON NOTHING ON A FARM MACHINE
I bought myself a nailgun
telling the people
at church
it was for
a movie, also
a child
in hell
asked
to tie
my shoe, and a neighbor
brought it up
the baby
inside
the baby
~
THE YEAR OUR SON ATE ONLY MEALS PREPARED BY INSOMNIACS
was the same
possible
year
he tried
to kill himself
because I couldn’t
stop him
but back
to the insomniacs
they weren’t
family
~
THE YEAR OUR SON SPOTTED DEER ON THE MOON
it made
some sense
then
to cut
our past
in half
~
THE YEAR OUR SON THOUGHT WE LOVED HIM
lasted longer than most dogs
but there was
this one
stray
we saw
often
it had one
abandoned
healthy
eye
inside of which
our belongings
were small enough
to have
~
Time won’t be poor forever:
the child of a former smoker
makes
for frog
a cup
of her hands
no matter
that no
frog comes
nor frog
like it
Moods for neurology:
snake that can fetch a bone can mourn lightning
WORKS
for purchase:
Ghost Arson (Kung Fu Treachery Press, 2018)
on amazon:
at barnes & noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghost-arson-barton-smock/1129931893?ean=9781946642868
or signed copies 15.00 via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
or Venmo @Barton-Smock-1
privately self published:
animal masks on the floor of the ocean, 124 pages, 10.00, June 2019
Motherlings, 52 pages, 4.00, June 2019
an old idea one had of stars, 58 pages, 8.00, February 2020
via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
or Venmo @Barton-Smock-1
As time moonlights as indoctrination’s sole souvenir, hunger and sleep have again been separated by death. Let us say a movie was for years being made about my church. I did nothing. I sat with my mother between bathtubs and faded in and out of child. And children. Both needing the before of that first bear.
kingsoftrain 