Hover
Amy Pence
Trigger warning: graphic depictions of women
the skin of me has no name . nor the arching branches . against a monochrome forest . nor frogs brimming to the surface . with a million tones . skin on water collects water skaters . skaters on water . lobed leaves & toothed . or unlobed, untoothed . less familiar . than the skin of me . on the news, images of small dwellings . reports that grown men entered girls found hoveled . {related to hove or hover} . in bent refrigerator boxes under a half-burnt underpass . {to arch, bend, buckle} . under construction shards . forcibly, they enter the girls . one—11— her flesh strafed . burned by a plastic lighter— . the men toothed, untoothed . entrances . spaces . invasions . most, dark-haired girls . their hair clotted with semen . or secreted in a van . fingers hover : pixels of a her reflect across faces . their hair covered, uncovered . an eye witnesses a volley {vulgar latin: volta, feminine noun} of creatures . creatures volley {to fly, see volant} . into the I . interlocking millions . frogs begin their bilious croaking . as in want . want . want . matter . body .envelops . {envolupen, to be involved in sin, crime} . the girls nameless . entered . entered again . dry leaves . spent shells . skate across water . our skin has no name . nor the interlocking branches . with a million tones . the I speaks, blooms . the I wreaks {Olde English: to avenge}. heaves {past tense, hove; to lift, raise, bear up} its millions .
The Death Verses
Amy Pence
To gallop into the void
on their wooden upside-down horses,
the Masters set down
their last verses:
1) Master Ta-kuan had no
energy to box anyone’s ears: Yume, he wrote–
Dream, and died.
2) When he wrapped his legs
full lotus, Master
Hofuku left ideation.
3) Chuang-tzu refused the expensive funeral, but
not the carrion kites or the crows. The cricket-moles
did not weep for his flesh.
4) Indescribable tenderness.
5) Bashō had no poem.
He had already died
to every moment, breathing
each brilliant fish to life.
about the writer
Amy Pence authored the poetry collections Armor, Amour (Ninebark Press), The Decadent Lovely (Main Street Rag), and the chapbooks Skin’s Dark Night (2River Press) and Your Posthumous Dress: Remnants from the Alexander McQueen Collection (dancing girl press). Her hybrid book on Emily Dickinson— [It] Incandescent – (Ninebark, 2018) won the Eyelands Poetry Award in Athens, Greece. A full-time tutor in Atlanta, she’s taught poetry-writing at Emory University and in other workshop settings. Links to other work: www.amypence.com