Jenny Sampirisi

from The Possum Play
            Act 2
Jenny Sampirisi

He says:
I like your feet.
She says:
they keep me up.
And leaves come down.
Living world turned ornament:
green stilettos,
leather boots,
fields and roads,
the wild.

If you can be immobile for a time,
emit stink.

I come back.
(Come back.)
Not deliberately.

Could be that the sea remembered its history of ground
or the shake gave way to stillness.

____________________________

Jenny Sampirisi is the author of the novel is/was (Insomniac Press, 2008) and the poetry collection Croak (Coach House Books, 2011). She is the recipient of the 2011 K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Literature.

One Reply to “Jenny Sampirisi”

  1. “If you can be immobile for a time,/emit stink” is tangy and downright nervy for its placement following allusions to green in ‘nature’, relationship and the green a possum emits to keep predators away. Makes the whole poem compact decay until the last two lines. It’s stunning what trauma one can withstand and come back to stillness.

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