k a t h l e e n    m a r i s

 
 

Venus


from A Bright Space








































Venus
 

How many times have I mistaken you
for a UFO     beside this new ocean
I am stealing your planet     needing your light     aliens
didn't put me to sleep     that was the anesthesiologist
my kidney     the partner     it's missing
but all that's past now     my husband is dead
his memory decanted     I rub tannins into my nightskin
I am in love now     I am drunk on a man's teeth
they said     even love can't cure the lonelies     in Spain
there are many women whose name means soul
my name means warrior     pure one
I am the flower     and its poison
I am alone     in love     listen
to our magnetic limbs as they clack toward your light

next








































from A Bright Space
 

She climbed out onto the terrace of terraces to adjust the aluminum foil covered rabbit ears. She wanted to meditate on a small black circle until she entered it, until she could hear nothing, not even herself, or until she could hear a kind of nothing that was more like a bridge, a clause, like a pain, or joy, without our old thoughts. She listened, and what she could hear was so faint, it was like an s without a tongue. She wondered, How can I give it voice? Then, there was this left-over hum, hum, and yes there were empty words but there were unempty words too, so she began twisting and turning the rabbit ears, shouting, I want to hear it all, all of it, all, and when the soft dark soft of the world resumed, she loved, she did love, the noise it made.

  

next

KATHLEEN MARIS's poems have appeared in Thrush, InDigest, Poems by Sunday, Sun's Skeleton, and Sugar Mule. She recently completed her MFA at the University of New Hampshire where she teaches English as a Second Language.

I S S N     1 5 5 9 - 6 5 6 7