STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
JENNIFER PERRINE
In a patch of brown grass, the dog curls into sleep in the early sun. Dandelions unfurl yellow stipples on the weathered canvas of the lawn. A charm of bees descends. Each landing and leaving sends a tremble through those scrawny stems.
Somewhere beyond the unused chicken coop, the empty woodshed, a northern flicker repeats its clear, clear. The camellia lifts toward the light, all glossy green leaves, not a flower in sight.
On the breeze, a neighbor’s coffee, the distinct caramel of pancakes. The dog yawns, scratches his face. Inside the house, his brother barks at the empty front yard—no squirrels, no birds, no cars,
not even yours, gone
for eleven days now but
I am not counting.
When a squirrel scurries across the weathered boards that hem in the concrete patio, the dogs do not lift their heads. The small table wiped clean for the move is already speckled with dirt. A spiky succulent and a cup of basil wilt in the heat, green against the stacks of flattened boxes, bags of crumpled packing paper, bubble wrap, foam that may never degrade.
A butterfly bush from a neighbor’s yard hovers its purple cones close enough to touch. One week, and no skippers or swallowtails, no brushfoots. Not even a bee. Only flies dart and alight, drawn by the dumpster’s maw yawning in the sun.
Voices float from other apartments, and the dogs lunge, cast their sharp barks through gaps in the fence. From behind the abundance of roofs, three trees rise: two ailanthuses heavy with samara and smelling of rot, and one evergreen called Douglas fir and false hemlock. In this place,
pines hide their true names.
Even the tree of heaven
has a foul odor.
Jennifer Perrine is the author of four award-winning books of poetry: Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. Their recent poems, stories, and essays appear in New Letters, The Seventh Wave Magazine, JuxtaProse, The Rumpus, Buckman Journal, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. Perrine lives in Portland, Oregon, where they co-host the Incite: Queer Writers Read series, teach creative writing to youth and adults, and serve as a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) consultant. To learn more, visit www.jenniferperrine.org.
