Fire Series Poems – Kelly Hoffer

to brood is to try to hold a cloud in your mouth without letting on that it’s there. the nest doesn’t belong to the hatchling as it belongs to the eggs. if we accept a possession is the thing you own, is the ghost that rules you.

a hatchling takes possession, empties a nest by pushing eggs over the woven lip with its unfeathered tail. property is a two-way street, I like to think. my mother for example, my grief for another. the broken eggs belong to the ground, and the ground to the blood-streaked yolks— an example, even, belongs to its abstract shell. ownership is an obstacle to unletting, sex better on a rented bed, pleasure freer overheard by a faceless neighbor.

the baby didn’t speak my tongue but I understood her wanting language all the same. a cloud is the egg you hold in your mouth, the baby the thing you can’t help but let in. spun sugar is the cotton you consider breathing. the egg, I cherish it with my mind. my mind, a mouth sitting on top of a nest. all the same, birthright is the fiction America builds in me.

meeting my neighbors I call them siblings. singing false, I evict them without sprouting a feather. the joy I expected in abetting another’s abandonment never arrives. my country, inescapable, escapes me. the world condenses to a word, the candy in the sky starts to cry, my tears sustain a thing, cherishing. a taut relation is a two-way string— talking into the tin can, talking into an echo, I derail its shape.

I have forgotten the egg I came from, the one I came for. I have forgotten if I am bigger or smaller than my mother— the natural order, she understands my wanting language. my mouth opens, cherry-stained, I am hungrier than she can stand to provide.

Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-6768-2 ISBN 10: 0-8229-6768-5 Cover art © Joanna Blémont, Fire Sequence, 2023, watercolours on paper, 19 x 28 cm. Cover and book design by Alex Wolfe Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 7500 Thomas Blvd., 4th floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, United States, www.upittpress.org EU Authorized Representative: Easy Access System Europe, Mustamäe tee 50, 10621 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected] OceanofPDF.com slash, n.

Felled trees and other debris left in a forest after logging or the clearing of a tract, or resulting from high wind or fire. OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS A field (not on fire) God is a kite. God is a kite. The first symptom of a sequel the faces of a diamond The first flame named only after expulsion Pluming A structured fire An unstructured fire Ars poetica (clouded) Fire interval the faces of a diamond chemical lace / day series Or am I a room with a roof taken off, still holding onto my idea of a ceiling The first flame wed to a sword Eve on fire // the hymn Eve on fire // the siren flame Brood parasite In the early dark of morning Constraints I give the page as it builds my virtual life Field holiday Do I take to the heather Do I set the heather on fire Disaster type He told me he recognized our new life and I knew the faces of a diamond The first flame a vehicle vers Sex poem Pygmalion iteration Firebreak An exercise in which I try to see blue in the red flame.

Racket (i) Racket (ii) Racket (iii) Know where Foliage freeze The first flame rendered I invest in horizon futures the faces of a diamond Notes Acknowledgments OceanofPDF.com FIRE SERIES / // /// OceanofPDF.com A field (not on fire) a field moves like water grasses the sea the sea quieting the flaming thing // / OceanofPDF.com God is a kite.

the tether pierces my palm. I would have given up my hands earlier for this relief of a bodily mark of the intangible. I have never been a person of faith, made as I am of stiffer stuff. salt and tits and shallows. shadow preserves snow, each object has its own frosted cape in the shape of its shade. I am threaded through. I walk among the melting ice. holding or being held, are you a kite or am I a doll hanging by a string.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: b3fdfa0d73228b51
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,911,790 bytes (2.777 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780822967682, 0822967685
• Pages: 119
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 41.68 minutes
• Total Words: 8,336
• Total Characters: 44,540
• Average Words per Page: 70.05
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