Bethany Swann
I pass through the blue
focal planes, a scene of desire
Title from Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s “The Star Field”
A year sheds its velvet down to the bone We rev up the space heater
to lose a sense of agrarian numbness
Snow blocks the skylight but you can still hear the cardinals roar, a bloodletting
through radius of pine
It might have been afterward I felt coins pouring
like raiment through my ears the sun dialed down to zero
When you’re asymptomatic, they sayevery gemcut opening veers
toward you:such horizons extend
to you who have always been emerald
The wind farm spins mythology of sugar & artifice runoff from the paper mill
bloats the trout lipsyncing
through rhizomes of kelp zebra mussels become infidels at the local level
Back at your parents’ house
bathroom tile with pastel flourishes
a wicker basket in the shape of a swan
(your ancestors added an N
to our last name so as to distance themselves from the waterfowl—but no matter)
plenty of oyster knives on hand
in the greenhouse
a Monet in 5k pieces
to stave off boredom
Your aunties couldn’t save the holidays
so we toasted
the Christ child swaddled in textured compression
mulled wine & cardamom
How joy might occur
as candlelight
touching down
on a cheekbone
Bethany Swann is a PhD student at UPenn focusing on Asian American studies and contemporary poetry/poetics. She is a Kundiman fellow and the regional co-chair of Kundiman Northeast. Her chapbook Diadem Me was published by Miel Press in 2014. • Photo by the author.