J e n n i f e r P i l c h —

Early American 

On an oval table with falling leaves 

wood enhanced by rubbing 

hemp for binding, scraped and heckled  

the room making copies 

cells in stitches, furniture organelles 

walls powdered wool DNA 

the weather— language 

the landscape— wavy glass 

* 

Animals released from their cages  

go where dark and dry humors  

mottle the pages of books 

They find prisms coated with sauce 

their own cells stuck to transparency 

but nothing about what happened  

in those rooms 

They find walls patterned in vitriol 

slag in tubs, slip in sinks

everywhere animal fat  

thirsty for solvent 

but nothing about what happened 

in those rooms 

* 

Ponder, softly stare: this isn’t 

what you first saw; this isn’t 

even here, once determined away  

from this reserved lot 

blurred to presence, flurries minding 

their sections, not unlike the artifice  

of what’s first been written 

even with a better way, it captures, 

glistens.

Remedy 

If the house swallows you, pain(t) its likeness 

— clock face squeegeed across asphaltum  

antimony foyer, titanium shag 

—pain(t) until faucets drip turpentine 

until heavy metals  

enter your eye sockets and mouth 

The lab no greater kindness— 

light-tight hours, dizzy spells, sun-groped tracts 

—cut at the shoulder  

and above the knee 

an occasional spine (mother in underwear  

picking something up) 

headboard a pecan row of thought bubbles

And the mock ups of place; a battle with blades 

wrestled interiors—lib[er]ation! lib[er]ation!— 

vending machine audience to crack the cell 

—linoleum impaled by falling instruments 

—sun right to left over a field  

of crescent droppings 

You should have written! Entered from  

the other end and called it your opening 

Latchkey heathens softened the keyhole 

with their finger grease: The universe pill-shaped! 

Taken as directed or 

take me, take me now!

.