Elizabeth Scanlon
Two Poems
Early Start
Acid green new leaves against the wet bark
of saplings by the chain link fence around
our squatters’ garden; I came to till my part
with a rusty little claw. It’s too early to plant
but I can’t stay away. The clay is cold and needs
sun, air, rice hulls—in the beginning, it is simple
to make it better.
I can plan for what might grow
but not for what won’t. I sit in the dirt. I lie down
in my plot and make a spectacle of myself
if there were anyone to see.
Tell me then, what true thing I should not say.
One thing you know
about a woman who can peel an apple in one long coil
is that she’s good with a knife,
good at staying her hand from cutting too deep,
good at staying level;
here’s another thing you know: the apple
is smooth and true, picked
by feel not looks. She hardly looks
at the thing unspooling in her hand.
She will give you a slice you didn’t ask for
and eat her own held between thumb and blade.
Elizabeth Scanlon’s books include Whosoever Whole (Omnidawn, 2024), Lonesome Gnosis (Horsethief Books, 2017), and Odd Regard (ixnay press, 2013). She is editor-in-chief of The American Poetry Review and lives in Philadelphia.