Poem for My Son in the Car by Jennifer K. Sweeney

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 4, 2017   Poem for My Son in the Car   Jennifer K. Sweeney

The wipers sweep two overlapping hills on the glass, we are quiet against the squeaky metronome as we often are before the concerns of the day well up. Today: Is it dark inside my body? The wet cedar's dark of green-gone-black of damp earth mending itself, a pewter bell rung into night's collected sigh, choral and sleep-sunk. Dark as the oyster's clasp in its small blind pocket and the word pocket a tucked notion set aside in-case-of. Inside there are vestibules, clapboards trapdoors, baskets, there is cargo, there is the self carrying the self sprint, trodden— nowhere does it not— and mournful as a spine bowing to wood you carry your actions; inside is cave and concern, everything purposeful heartwood, clockwork, crank and tender iron in the mountain belly, all the hidden things breathing. Outside of and woven into, you are the knowledge you can't touch the desire you can't locate, unnameable questions unnameable answers, source and tributary and the rivers that hold you beneath. Your darkness lives in that potential, snowblind aurora pulse shore.            Copyright © 2017 Jennifer K. Sweeney. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "The car is something of a truth portal for my son; from the steady rhythm and blurring landscapes, and with both of us pointed forward, budding philosophies, fears, and confessions arise. When he asked me this question at age five, I was moved in such a way I kept peeling back its layers—what might it mean to understand the darkness of the body. The more I turned over his question, the more darkness felt akin to tenderness." —Jennifer K. Sweeney   Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of Little Spells (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2015). She teaches poetry privately and lives in Redlands, California.   Photo credit: Lauren Henley   Poetry by Sweeney   Little Spells (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2015) "San Sepolcro" by Jorie Graham "Last Things" by William Meredith "In Darkness" by Jon Davis Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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