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University of Northern Iowa
Coralville Lake, 2005Author(s): EMILY MALONEYSource: The North American Review, Vol. 295, No. 1 (WINTER 2010), p. 22Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40792322 .
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Ν A R
■
C. J. SAGE
Donkey
Giver of ears to kings and fools, long-faced, desert-drifted
carrier of saints and baggage, second-sighted field goer, sermon-braying backtalker,
antagonist of failed prophets - heel digger, sure-footed self-preservationist, we trail you
to add a tail, or trade you in for tall-tale magic. We caricature you with droopy eyes;
we cartoonize our ennui onto you. The truth: you'd rather freeze than fight, rather figure than flee.
Ο wooly, cross-backed wanderer we keep corralled, ο dove- gray guide and deliverer of goods, you take our hay and keep us.
JANUARY GILL O'NEIL
January Is a Month You Would Consider Leaving
The days seem shorter inside me. Everything is iced over in grief and always there are layers.
Our conversations slow to mere breaths no words, just plumes of steam vanishing into thin, frigid air.
I can't compete with the failing light from your voracious heart burning us both into nothing.
Something has left us. Every droplet of joy has resolved itself to sky. When will melt come?
How could anyone blame you for escaping the coldest month of the year?
EMILY MALONEY
Coralville Lakef 2005
If a poem were the lights of oncoming cars, then I'd trap you: a doe, maybe, a young buck, the slice of your branching antlers reflective in the dark.
If lovers were deer, you'd kick in bed and chew on the sheets, your legs folded up in an awkward tangle, your brown glass eyes illuminating the room:
two searchlight beams.
In the morning, you'd sleep through the alarm.
If deer were something else, maybe stones or volcanic eruptions, you would make more sense: the ears twitching to produce
small seismic activities, maybe butterflies on the Richter scale.
If you were a deer, I'd drive to the country and let you go -
your dress trailing behind you like some maligned prom queen, a cape, a ghost in the forgotten light.
22 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW Winter 2010
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