–Ecrit par L’Automate de Maillardet
From the long view, the wetlands stun me—
patches of long grass sway
like dauphinesses lost in a troubadour’s voice.
But up close, Mademoiselle,
the green is sickly.
Old tires and gnarled rust protrude,
orphan shrubs of oil and mud.
I lie in it anyway,
for a little while,
feel the softness of earth.
Once the one-eyed girl whispered a story:
She found a garden behind a tenement,
a small garden with a few sad carrots.
She lay among them and covered her face with soil,
then planted a single seed
above her socket.
As she spoke, her blushing impelled me
to draw her a ship.
I hoped she understood I meant to take her away
one day, away
from this soot-black city
of regret and excrement
to a fertile land where from every branch,
like fattened fruit, hangs a single green eye.
To read more of Pennock's poems, please purchase the issue here.
Matthew Pennock is the author of Sudden Dog (Alice James Books 2012). His poems have appeared in many journals and periodicals, some of which are Western Humanities Review, Denver Quarterly, New York Quarterly, LIT, and Guernica: A Journal of Art and Politics.
