Three poems by Penney Knightly

Vivarium

I have the light of you on my mind
a magical mason jar thought
as if I could keep you like a firefly,
gently and viciously punch holes
into the roof of your breathing mouth.

In the house you are more like a habit
I do things like move the furniture around
something akin to branches, small sticks like walls,
carpet as dense as a handful of leaves
they even have the same smell.

I feed you sustenance through plastic and fabric,
linings on the windows are symbolic,
chairs and cold floor comforts;

I think you suspect--
the way you lean across the bed as if
you are a pane of glass
then how your shape becomes the structure
of the interior.





Object Lesson from Nature

I picked up dirt
it was more than me
ground and particulate
fine and blowing, chalky
as a lung in a dust bowl.

It looked desaturated
as light as milk,
crispy, cool as death
ageless because it is depth
not because it has eyes.

I see a jump in the brush
a sage little fellow
blue as a vein. Two tiny legs

to carry it. How it picks
at the rocks and earth,
how it makes a nest
from what has fallen.





Desynchronous

You took me back
which was a love I'm not sure you have
but I like to dream of it, the possibility
of you not being what you are.

I had been away
in what we called jail
but was actually an asylum,
I kept crying over things
being able to go to the bathroom
unattended by fear,

you were kind and took me around
the large mansion you bought, filled
with so many rooms, I could have any one
it was dark and warm like a silent movie
I liked the remoteness and how you could see green
in the windows with the light and the ocean as if it were standing.



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Image - Edward Zulawski
www.flickr.com/photos/edwardzulawski/
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Bio: Penney Knightly is a survivor of child and adult sexual abuse, and explores themes on the subject in her work. Her poetry has appeared in Raving Dove, Broad Magazine, Big River Review, Dead King, Postcard Poems and Prose, and Ink in Thirds. She lives with her family on a sailboat in the San Francisco Bay. She tweets @penneyknightly and shares art on her blog http://penneyknightly.com.

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