Site Title
TURTLE ISLAND QUARTERLY 12
Spring/2017
Chapter Two: poem by Sara Clancy, poem by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington,
poem by Matthew Ryan Evans
POEM BY SARA CLANCY
*Instead of a Common Brawl*
Write a letter saying exactly
what you think, wrap it in silver
foil and throw it to the crow
strutting in your driveway.
Watch it ascend to a blue
so thin that your insults will
fire off one by one and float
down like lemon dust. Sweep
it into a black bowl and burn
it for its truth. Smudge your
fingers in the bile of this
incantation and write it out
again. This time under
the shelter of your skin
the tattoo of a just
and indifferent bird.
Sara Clancy a Philadelphia transplant to the Desert Southwest. Her poems
have appeared in /The Linnet's Wings/, /The Avatar Review/, /Crab Creek
Review/, /Kentucky Review/, T/he Madison Review/, /The Smoking Poet/,
/RE-VERSE/, /Verse Wisconsin, Main Street Rag, Antiphon, Off the Coast,
Antiphon /and/Houseboat/, where she was a featured poet. She lives in
Arizona with her husband, their two dogs, a cross-eyed cat and a 24 year
old goldfish named Darryl.
POEM BY DARYL LORENZO WELLINGTON
The Silence Before the Summer Storm
Before the lightning flashes
a sudden heavy silence scoured poutily bruised
loose lips. We postponed by promising
ourselves clean thoughts and flossing stained
teeth. Bright as spring leaves. Depression apples!
Did I mention the separate sinks: oh, and mirrors!
I managed the scant few July and August
conversations with her nippily arguing
the ineffably petty details out
of the blue, or the dark, and quickly then
the impromptu, childish lies. Quickly then –
The silences before the summer bolts
locking shut the major/minor doors.
The refrigerator hums. A remarkable dirge.
The vapidly green grapes lie in the fridge
like soggy, rotten proof.
And proof. And proof.
Our words, like our repasts together,
going putrid.
Darryl Lorenzo Wellington OF Santa Fe, New Mexico, is an African American poet and essayist. His poetry has been published in Boston Review, Pedestal, Turtle Island Quarterly, and Matter Monthly. I am presently a writing fellow at the Center for Community Change, in Washington DC.
POEM BY MATTHEW RYAN EVANS
The sky is a dark mouth
Snow floats in the flooded sink of our sleep like ruined teeth (snow is
the ghost of stars you can’t see).
Our dreaming tongues are flooded with incoherent heat
a dark mouth
is wide open
over us,
deceiver of our dreams.
Matthew Ryan Evans lives in Western Canada. He does strategy and communications for a commercial bank to make a living, and writes poems to organize his inner relations.