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  • Of Pink, and: Nightjar
  • Kasey Jueds (bio)

Of Pink

You wanted to live foreverinside the book of flowers.Peony foxglove geranium rose, eachsingle pink startled and shone there.And the salmon-walled houses on the islandwhere you were child: you rodeyour bike past their blushes.Pink of thrum and pulse, rougeand fuchsia. Pink of touch-me-there.Mornings in the unheated pool,blood rushing the surfaceof skin. Pink of just-beneath.Of knuckle and cheek, secretpink behind the knee. Pinkencircled you, called with its roughcat's tongue. Instead you hid.Girl-not-girl, dressed in dullnavy blue, drab green, envyingthe deer that turns the colorof the forest it enters, colorof November and vanishment.But what silks the palmlike rose petals. What glidesand tarries so. You came lateto pink, though pink was alwayshere. The one who holdsyour face in both hands. The onewho says I see you. Nothing silks so.Pink of oh. Pink of see-me.Of labia and lip, of weltsraised by poison ivy on the tenderinlet of wrist. Who kissedyou in woods where the deerkeep their secrets. Who holds.Pink of wound between [End Page 57] the sutures. Pinkof live. See? You arewhere you wantedto be. Aliveinside. Here,your book of flowers. [End Page 58]

Nightjar

Asking and asking its solitary question, so closeit might have been inside the room. For momentsor maybe hours, the bird was only sound. Like the baby insidethe dream you woke from, crying behinda closed door—one of dozens that linedthe long, white corridor. No, thatwas real: going to see the new doctor, who would listena while to your weeping, and prescribe pills. Whippoorwillsare nightjars. They sleep by day onthe forest floor and recognize others of their kindby sound. For moments—how long?—you stoodin that hallway. How you couldn't notkeep on living then, though the sobbing was bodilessand there were so many doors, and only onewas the one you were meant to go through. [End Page 59]

Kasey Jueds

Kasey Jueds is the author of Keeper (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Some of her recent poems can be found in American Poetry Review, Narrative, Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, Provincetown Arts, Colorado Review, Cave Wall, and Crazyhorse.

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