LAUREN HALDEMAN

Are Floods, Every Room

At the far end of the field: urn-tree & kudzu bloom. No one
will notice. Not the moss, not the little pink eardrums.
I have discovered my own evaporation point. Little mass
of mud-slick, me, and you turn the doorknob. Come in.

This is a house of fragmentation, this is the earnest roll
of suckle-sap. Slow down, wait.

Weather pantomimes outside. The windows are draped with
periodic charts. Wind slides in, white flags & neon fists.
Bootleg, gum-spirit, bottlebrush. Begin.

 

Fang Song

Fang Song is a quiet
Place in the brain.
There is one sign swinging there.
It says 'What?' on it.
Behind this is sky, and
Is something else—
A spout of water
That sparkles in the air.
Have you ever been there?
Yes I found dogs.
Did their fur smell of the grave?
They were very directional.
Their fangs sang a song
About wind-chimes and things
I opened my mouth
And it took them all in
In the thunder snow
Where scrawny mongrels
Often roam loose.

 

Whirling Bird

Oh cotton star in the old-timey jug
I’m drinking dandelion-ade by the electric keyboard
Drink deep
The nation is so far away
Electrifyingly
But here
The air is tricked with gemstones illuminated
Whose entire picture turns into a whirling bird
Whose tiniest drawings make me cry
I am not even making myself

LAUREN HALDEMAN is the author of the books Instead of Dying (2017 Colorado Prize for Poetry), Calenday (2014), and The Eccentricity is Zero (2014). Her work has appeared in Tin House, The Colorado Review, Fence, and Tupelo Quarterly, among others. A comic book artist and poet, she’s received the Colorado Prize for Poetry, an Iowa Arts Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award and fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. You can find her online at http://laurenhaldeman.com.