Poetry by Arwyn Sherman

              Jack Blundell CC



 salmon

I’ve been asked to name the thing inside myself that hates me and
               all i can think of is how awkwardly big your mouth is but
               only when you kiss me when 
               its just you and your denial framing
               small words out of a regular mouth

Unapologetic boy with broken glass hands and communion apologies / useless and dissolved
against the tongue.

I am this dissonance, the fatigue of coveting / jigsaw puzzle with the corner pieces shredded /
a bloodied elk with corn stuck between her teeth, hunted with trust and pressed clean on metal
washboards—the economy of meat / blood stains on the living room floor

We are apostles that worship the space between fruition and desire 
               we are comfortable with wanting
               it is all we know

              Blessed be those who ache for nothing / who desire not the sinew stripped bone from
the deer skeleton nor the living doe plucking berries carefully from the forest / Bless them in
their detachment 
I am far too rooted to be an accomplice / far too buried in careless men’s deviance to feel free.





​ serenade

Look at my small house, my fingers that broke and bled to claw this corner of the universe from 
              my tired bones
Look at me
I am easy,
               sing me terrible lies, sing them
               until they are pulling me out of the car
               out of the home your wife keeps clean for you
The drive home is empty
I am scared of dying alone and in the dark

There is a tin box with enough flint for one fire, 
               maybe two if rationed but the box
               is welded shut but my own dumb hands
My pathetic heart and useless availability 

I’ve only known love as suffering 
I do not know what love as kindness is
I cannot accept it as anything but pity

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Arwyn Sherman lives in rural Maine with two cats and a toad.

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