Jen Tynes

CLEAVING POEM

This sharpshooter feeling is easy
for the ingénues, but I am eating
my twelfth decade like a hot plate
toasting rank Gretels, frothed
over to black. I enervate the wall
sockets with my knob-neat
plans: blue mussels on a bone
rosed plate. Raw cedar of the after
mouth, the mouth that did not
get the grease. We are not talking
about delicate instruments. Char coal
will open it, if it's still deep in love.

BUFFALO POEM

The calls that my mouth make
a habit of turn varicose then lefty
loosey until Detroit peels

away from its priors, its edible
wingspan, falls from the factory
body and becomes an umbrella
dancer. Anyone who has ever opened

a jar inside the house knows danger
when they puncture it. The kink in
the insulation that becomes you
buttered up, becomes sort of post-

fig. Anyone who has ever chosen to sleep
with Detroit will probably want them

some eggs afterwards. And for an eclipse
to upright them and for you to name the bird.

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