A stanza in the snow, as equal by Jennifer K. Dick

                             (ties) (lies) (-fuge)
Within that subtle

graze the key, stroke back
in that dining, that mahogany
contemporary debate His hands

Breaking

Hers
blue-white         Is she
the smallest dish, this porcelaine
sealed room
                       within which Machiavelli writes--
My prince, why this tingling absence?
Eleven figures march along, six
carry the casket, time
ticks in the ear, season-change,
backcount to this divide

when
               180 x2             or 2x
equals Us
                        U.S.
                                   You as or are
Capt
               that Inter
Ruption
               a corrective
Squal
               this (disem-) body
Fall into the stone
crypt within what banks          She

Atop or on or
crumble the pages
follow
               For folly is
this bedlam
bedfellow sequestered
That You, that he,
We: house arrest—

Venice in Medici Machiavellic gates
(gardenless) (the values)

subtract

His              Grasp            Her
stanza in the snow, as equal.


+ + + + +


Jennifer K. Dick was born in Minnesota, raised in Iowa and currently lives in Paris, France where she works as a teacher of American Literature, Creative Writing and English. She has carried out doctoral research in the field of Comparative Literature with an emphasis on Visual studies, Modernism, Postmodernism and the Avant-garde. She also holds a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Colorado State University. Her published works include the book Fluorescence (University of Georgia Press, 2004), Retina/Rétine (Estepa Editions, Paris, 2005) and ENCLOSURES (BlazeVox, New York, 2007).

This is part of a series of poems from invited poets. Previous contributors were Luke Heeley, Joe Ross, George Szirtes, Elizabeth Spackman, Ivy Alvarez, Rufo Quintavalle, Todd Swift, Michelle Noteboom, Beverley Bie Brahic, Ethan Gilsdorf, Amy Hollowell, Choman Hardi, and Jeramy Dodds. Illustration by Jonathan Wonham.