by Lynne Jensen Lampe

golden shovel after joni mitchell’s down to you

words can’t paint everything
this side of the glass :: blood comes
with its own poetry &
each line leaks iron & loneliness :: tangoes
till one pane cracks :: i choose pleasure
in strange skin or the give & take that moves
two souls :: held in the space between :: krypton
gas shields me from desire too
hot & ragged as new teeth :: early
chains prison the other’s pain &
in the space between we blue-light trouble
flicker off & on till one leaves
a heart fogged & dusty & opening too
slow

Lynne Jensen Lampe’s poetry appears or will appear in Kenyon Review, Okay Donkey, THRUSH, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022), an Eric Hoffer winner and finalist for the McMath Award, concerns mother-daughter relationships and mental illness. She lives with her husband and two dogs in mid-Missouri, where she edits academic writing, reads for Tinderbox Poetry Journal and is a founding member of Dame Good Writers. Lynne’s website is at lynnejensenlampe.com and her Instagram is @lynnejensenlampe.