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Again I See His Diminishing Unfamiliar
figure on the floor. Again last night
in my dream my father dies—if he is, that shifty
shape Odysseus my giveaway mama spins
her yarns for. My orders she takes sullen.
[Telemachus, she calls, it’s time.] Her strength
shrivels mine. But I believe I’m a man,
or nearly. Must be. Time, that boyish beauty
[Wisdom tells me, to leave this house. Father]
& I roam stony corridors, archipelagos,
in search of his little wanton duck. Other
& subject, has she cracked her upstairs cell?
Spread & sheathed? Mother, I say, to rule her.
He sits on a beach & weeps. Horrific air
-floods, pallid erotic singing, crumple him.
Two poems by Jeanne Larsen, including “Again I See His Diminishing Unfamiliar,” appear in Flock 21.
Again I See His Diminishing Unfamiliar
figure on the floor. Again last night
in my dream my father dies—if he is, that shifty
shape Odysseus my giveaway mama spins
her yarns for. My orders she takes sullen.
[Telemachus, she calls, it’s time.] Her strength
shrivels mine. But I believe I’m a man,
or nearly. Must be. Time, that boyish beauty
[Wisdom tells me, to leave this house. Father]
& I roam stony corridors, archipelagos,
in search of his little wanton duck. Other
& subject, has she cracked her upstairs cell?
Spread & sheathed? Mother, I say, to rule her.
He sits on a beach & weeps. Horrific air
-floods, pallid erotic singing, crumple him.
Two poems by Jeanne Larsen, including “Again I See His Diminishing Unfamiliar,” appear in Flock 21.
Jeanne Larsen’s new book of poems, What Penelope Chooses, won the Cider Press Review Book Award, and will be out from CPR next January. She has published two other books of poetry, two of translated poems by medieval Chinese women, and four novels. She teaches in the BA and MFA programs of the Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins University. www.jeannelarsen.com