Jen Currin, “In Breath”
Author: Poetry Editor
May 9, 2011
Today, a poem from Jen Currin’s The Inquisition Yours (Coach House Books), another finalist for this year’s Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry and this year’s winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry.
IN BREATH
Dreams of stretching—you are longer
than you know.
This might be the best I can do.
Lesbians marry on a beach,
outshine my meanness.
Apples left from last week.
I thought: I’ll just walk over to your place
& drop myself off.
Your face a shadowed building.
Your words turn water into musk.
In the room where we made love for 200 years
I put my glasses on the windowsill,
turned off the lights with my mouth.
An awkward mind precisely
as it should be.
The candles are at it again,
humbly.
They have that capacity.
——
JEN CURRIN and writes in Vancouver, B.C., where she also teaches creative writing for Kwantlen University and Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio. She has published three collections of poetry: The Sleep of Four Cities, Hagiography, and The Inquisition Yours, which is short-listed for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Award and winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry this year.
“In Breath” from THE INQUISITION YOURS by Jen Currin. Copyright © 2010 by Jen Currin. Used by permission of Coach House Books. All rights reserved.
