Corrie Lynn White
Two POEMS
Pericardium
When I’ve waded up to my thighs in the cold east fork,
when my mouth is a mayfly, finally above trout, I whisper:
Love is not eat, get eaten.
In the kitchen I stare hard where cars
could turn to deliver the truth, a tincture, death, new shoes.
The acupuncturist places a needle in my back
for the heart, she says, where the emperor sits
under God. Where the door sticks shut. Sticks open.
We want the door to open and close appropriately.
When I knew I could love you, I made you leave
the house, so tight with affection.
I needed to know could I break flat water
with my body, look to the locust tree
for the barred owl—make it religion all spring?
Memphis, I Am Large
I walk the Wolf River greenway wishing my legs were smaller
Pass sweet william, red buckeye, butterweed
wish my hair was thicker
Bald cypress looks like pine—shouldn’t have to brown each winter
In April the earth apologizes
All over, it’s been cracked
Mom uses Ponds Cold Cream Mammaw stuffs a rolled cloth
in her mouth after taking out her dentures Sarah buys arm and leg foundation
That desire to be smooth all over
To smear magenta on your mouth so as not to look dead
The river roils, full of mud If I stick my head under I’d see
no darters, hogfish, nothing
The thick matte brown I want like bedsheets
a conveyor belt for an ocean delivery
Everyone lives inside a body at one point
To be covered is instinct
I splay my thighs down the bank because the sun is open—
bright cellulite smothering dew—
and lie back and live
Corrie Lynn White is the author of Gold Hill Family Audio (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2022). A 2021 Tennessee Arts Commission Fellow in Poetry, she holds an MFA in poetry from UNC Greensboro and currently lives in Chattanooga, TN. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, New Ohio Review, and Best New Poets, among other places. Read more at www.clwhite.work.