Jemma Walsh

Tangentle

I poem pure, pulpful, sweet
unsexed, unsaccharine. I sign
in wire-twined tightrope,
in rage-hewn deathtrap plank—

I sonnet the width of the word orange,
the point of tangerine. I fraction it here
on the slow curve of a southern light
among strangers. Perfect.

I opaque in spindle-wispen clouds, spire
illusion’s fog. I again again like
a missionary’s croak, a citric sorry thirst.

I riverdraw and damprise the town
hunkering to origin. I lilac-kiss
the mountain’s mourning low.

Karlsruhe Woman

 I know I am ‘unrepeatable’
as Rilke would write etc…
yet I like to think
somewhere in the world
I have a sleep doppelganger.

Someone whose somnial states
just happen to map mine
perfectly, secretly.
I’ve decided it’s a woman
who lives in Karlsruhe.

A good bit taller than me,
she has all her teeth and her feet
are perfectly normal.
All I know really is she likes to eat
apples. A lot.

When my conscience wakes me
in the early hours to sip
on a cocktail of worry and regret,
she too wakes, lies there
long-limbed in her time zone.

 And in her small kitchen
just down the hall, a dawn light
will soon begin to slowly sketch
a cluster of curves becoming
apples in a bowl, waiting.

Jemma Walsh is an Irish poet based in London. Her work has appeared in The Irish Times, berlin lit, And Other Poems, Banshee, The Interpreter’s House, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Madrid Review, The Alchemy Spoon and elsewhere. @jemmawalsh