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.
KYRA SPENCE
In the mudded bed a smell bruised the air
and at its edges in the earth began to fade.
Reeds in leachate soldiered. The leafgreen waving
honey locust and sumac. Vultures turned, turned high
on the wide wind into dust squirming the retinal field
and floating things were rain, were gnats, and the echo
on the air from the range, a gunshot. It moves now but then
was all still. She wished for something to happen. That is what
I said. I said: She wished for something to happen. But with no
addendum and all the imperceptible—
the air squirmed low, came from elsewhere. The clock was
the wrong hour, or was right elsewhere, if there were.
It loosened on me. Didn’t make me sweat.
I knew I was losing it so I tried to name it.
Slice of canned peach suspended in syrup. The last
oily pink moments in the sky. Chemical sweet
on the air. The knot.
Somebody else’s baby. The bottles and jars
in the refrigerator glow but
it wasn’t any of those things. So I tried to hold it.
I lay there and don’t leave me, I thought, but
I was the one letting go. I wish I could
hold her now—the one who didn’t know why but
had to let it go. Is it obvious a girl lies
alone on the bed in this scene? I wish I wouldn’t
but I would do almost anything to convince
myself.
Kyra Spence is a poet living and working in Iowa City, Iowa, where she is an MFA candidate in poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New York's Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology, The Visible Poetry Project, and Pine Hills Review.
