[From a Room Called No Conclusion]: Erin M. Bertram
Gradient. Variations on errancy, subtle proficiency in all the wrong
quadrants of the board. Let the fever
halt visitors at the door, any entrance
barricaded off by a firm palm against the barrel chest
of indecision. In chess, it is the rook I most admire,
wallflower with its back to a corner, strategic
displacement its incidental goal.
November came right on schedule,
blue smoke climbs from my American Spirit, these the things which curl at the edges.
Those things which do not
begin, do not end, they are. Vanity or self-loathing,
fruitless depth perception, the weathered shovel leaning
idly against the garage door. Crackle of tobacco on inhale,
country music on the radio. County in chord progression,
not country in farmer’s overalls,
hands that wear the earth they move repeatedly through. Bruised feet.
[In Question] : Erin M. Bertram
Do you have your mother’s or your father’s hands.
Yes.
Whose face, when you lie down at night, do you see when you close your eyes.
Horses singing. Whips snapping continuously.
Have you ever dreamed of death & enjoyed the ride.
Horses singing. Whips snapping continuously.
Have you ever bled from you appendages, filled the cellar inside you with soil.
Col. Mustard, in the study, with a rope.
In dirty water, bobbing, current (current), chart your course.
Veer, hand in the high grasses, with reeds, with pussy willows; make a nest.
On all fours, crawling, does that make you a saint.
When the moon is new, river water throws back what color.
On all fours, crawling, does that make you a saint.
How many fingers are clean.
On all fours, crawling, does that make you a saint.
Who’s irrigated the sanctity of mirage.
Loosely speaking, how often do you unravel.
Figuratively, days I wake screaming. Literally—
Do you flit & flirt with one whose private self turns inward.
If Yes, I dignify you. If No, I dignify you. I do not wish to dignify you.
Your wife’s name is Justice. Is this not true.
No.
It is said you & she compose arias with old soup cans, bits of feather, & horse hair.
Peel back the grass, what is mumbling there.
It is said you & she fashion trust & valor contraptions in your sleep.
Sometimes the elk just stare.
[Heat Index] : Erin M. Bertram
1
A sudden slant of poppy, akin to that goose’s neck one summer, slender & bowed into a feathered mark of inquiry. And so quiet. How did she eat.
2
I have been saved by many things, understand that those who lack referral require the widest berth, gestures most holy.
3
Once there was a village, a dry medieval village stitched over with weeds. The townsfolk ate tree bark & leather. Fingers gone the way of claws.
4
In the moment before you realize musculature belongs behind bars, a twig snaps beyond the window. Think bone. Think each day how many go unbroken.
5
Top drawer of the secretary. You’re Louis Quatorze. Cedar whorled & fragrant, billet-doux bundled in string. Whose slant script. Who the writer. Who the written.
6
Deposition (n.): 1. that which is dropped-off; 2. a thing done before harvest; 3. what is commonly called evidence. As in, this my heart to knead & rub ‘til death.
7
Four-wheel drive, gear shift out of whack, alignment bent on slow collapse. Consider the ignition, routine turn of the same seven teeth.
8
Suspension bridge, heat lightning, red tide, underbite. Pick two of the aforementioned conditions. Knock together. Try not to notice.
9
I was the last questionable move you made. You’ve been on fire since, tough eyes, at times hard to please. Nights, we rent films, documentaries chronicling questionable moves.
10
My point is far from moot, so discs spun to perpetual scratch. I lose my footing repeatedly, so line dance with an eye to linear motion. Anything else throws me off.
11
The transference of energy requires the presence of at least two bodies, or not. An orchard buzzing with bees. Here, a hood would be fashionable.
12
Nights I do my sums, recite stanzas in hope of more & better ligatures. So far, wind rushing in from the West, friends scattered like seed.
13
Concentric circles. Follow the arc & vortex with a pencil. Note their curvature, ever upward, ever down. Always within. Always the one without.
14
Called a well, not a poorly. And from it, hoisted a bucket of perilous words. For you, meek. For you, fixity. For you, conceit. And for you, tongues.
15
In minutiae, clarity, if gossamer, if murk. Though a gathering crowd can grow ugly in its heft. A bottle of pills tucked behind the pomade, the tea cup on the counter.
16
Mercenary to heat & standards, wings all but torn to shredding. How one letter can change everything. Amour to armoire to armor to Dear X, I am never coming home again.
17
You, my tilde. You, my comma splice. You, my favorite gerund. You, my subjunctive mood. You, my hyperbole. You, my open-ended question.
18
My V-neck shirt. My able mouth. My cantankerous body. My 20/20 vision. My over-sight.
Erin M. Bertram
Erin has been a Midwesterner her whole life, despite a passing stint in New Orleans. She is a graduate fellow in the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis. She cannot avoid the mighty Mississippi. Her poems have been recently published in Bloom, Columbia Poetry Review, and typo. Her chapbook, Alluvium, is forthcoming from dancing girl press in 2007.