BIRTHRIGHT
Poetry by
Gwendolyn Jensen
Copyright © 2011 by Gwendolyn Jensen
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages in a review or interview, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-937520-02-1
Published by First Edition Design eBook Publishing July 2011
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com
Smashwords Edition
First Edition ISBN: 978-0-984-2003-0-6 (print)
Library of Congress Catalog Control No.: 2010911722
Art by Helen Febbo
This Letterpress Edition was typeset & printed at Birch Brook Press PO Box 81 Delhi NY 13753
To view our full catalog of books & art, please visit us at www.birchbrookpress.info
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CONTENTS
Expulsion
When Harriet and I Were Eight
Cleft-Palate
When She Was Two and Daddy Lifted
The Cormorant
Work Table
Swagger
Parade
Language Includes Me, Unaware
Recess
Girl Scout Cookies
Theirs
Childhood Bends Beside Me
The Night Before He Shot Himself He Taught His Daughter How to Wind the Clock:
Forgiveness
First Blood
Earth Has a Thousand Terraces
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, 1950
A Small Transaction
The Singer
At Home Alone With Children
I Poinsettia
II Song
III Allowances
IV The Quiet Led Me Deep Inside
Naptime
Stabat Mater
In the Foyer of Your Death
Epitaph For Liz
A Settled Matter
The Whistler
In a Sion Cave
What if This Present Were the World's Last Night?
Twin Houses
Sex Is Easy But Never Simple
Underpainting
Ekphrasis
Each Unwritten Poem Has a Face—
Carphology
Sky
Harvard Square
Panhandler
Walking Lucy
The Pompeii Dog
Christmas
Birthright
About the Author
About the Book
Acknowledgments
EXPULSION
When I was a girl I had a golden place,
a creek with over-hanging foliage
that dappled me as if it were a white
and private wall, it sheltered me from hurt
I did not understand. And to this place
there came a boy, a milk-eyed silvered boy
who wore a shirt of glistening pennies, real ones,
so they were, but why this was, and how,
and who I do not have the words to say.
He told me go from that place, not mine,
but his, and so obedient I went.
Even had I stood, bold to fight,
my place was gone.
I have never found its like again.
WHEN HARRIET AND I WERE EIGHT
When Harriet and I were eight
Wine was grape juice served in thimbles
The cross was empty no nails no stain
Fox eyes peered from mother's stole
Wine was grape juice served in thimbles
Where the tears of Mary lay
Fox eyes peered from mother's stole
Shrunken paps and comfort cakes
Where the tears of Mary lay
Harriet sat in her family pew
Shrunken paps and comfort cakes
She died unanswered nightblue death
Harriet sat in her family pew
Without a rustle unexplained
She died unanswered nightblue death
Everything we had forgot
Without the rustle unexplained
Above the pool baptismal pool
Everything we had forgot
Heaventree without its fruit
Above the pool baptismal pool
The cross was empty no nails no stain
Heaventree without its fruit
When Harriet and I were eight.
CLEFT-PALATE
My mouth's a roofless cave, unlit,
unvaulted, dark and hollowed out—
it is as dark as ocean is
below the belt of fish, below
that belt another place, weedy,
darkly wild, I must dive to reach it—
like the slender boy who found
a fissure into earth and crawled,
he crawled inside and left himself,
left traces there, stenciled hands,
horses, bison, his mind's construction,
closed in no direction.
WHEN SHE WAS TWO AND DADDY LIFTED
When she was two and daddy lifted
Her above the stretch of self
Breathing breathing gulls' swift breath
When she was two and daddy lifted
Tossed her up spindrifted down
To warm the warm of daddy's hands
When she was two and daddy lifted