Poetry by Maren Loveland

    Dane CC




Ungodly Hour


Before we died,
I let candles burn 
all night, til wax
drippings pooled like
bloodspill on the floor.
I held a handful 
of eyelashes—all 
my wishes—and
threw them like
seeds over a fallow 
field. I thought of the 
way water looks
on dragonfly wings--
like icicles
melting under
January half-suns. 
We lapped up the 
sound of things,
swallowed our choler, 
ate apples, and sang
songs: we used our
throats. Before we died,
we dove into candle
flame, curled our
bodies together
tighter than a
butterfly’s tongue, 
and let light slip 
stealthy between
the spiral.





                                                                                                     The Brain and the Liver
                                                                                                         after Emily Dickinson


                                                            I placed my Brain in a jar of embalming fluid, held it up to the
                                                            light—it glimmered and sparked like ash falling from a cigarette in
                                                            the darkness. Burned orange and impermanent and real as tulip
                                                            petals in spring. Round and round it spun, like a glowing carousel,
                                                            or two people, kissing. 


                                                            The only time I ever craved liver, a woman once said to me, was
                                                             when I was pregnant with my first child. She was a woman with
                                                             two livers inside of her, yearning after livertaste. And why is it, that
                                                             we so desire to consume what already resides within us?


                                                             I took out a hot butter knife, dipped it in the jar, and slathered my
                                                             toast with Brain.


                                                              Because We love the Wound, Dickinson writes.


                                                              I placed my Liver in front of a telescope—and hoped to see
                                                              another planet. Instead, I found only stars that looked like
​                                                              pomegranate pearls, little strangers, bloody and wet and sweet. 


                                                              I fell asleep looking at liversky—I was so hungry.


                                                              The wind wrestled 
                                                              with horses running through 
                                                              prairie grass. Made a sound 
                                                              speaking lonesome, telling me 
                                                              to place the firmament 
                                                              on my tongue, and swallow.

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Maren Loveland is from Atlanta, Georgia. She is currently a PhD candidate in English at Vanderbilt University studying the politics and aesthetics of water.