Research: Journals
The Journal
Past Issues
27.1
Mary Biddinger
SlimThe nude, then the crease
in the sheets when she stood.
Or a bather on the day
fish slid sideways to the coast
and covered it all. Neckline,
a thin hint of bone.
One song two men
played different ways, wax
to waxwing, the landlady
with newspaper and vinegar
at the window. Soft cloth
or a press of print
in the very corner, over
a red speck of moon.
Who owned that room
or the song that taught
the way of the hand, how
quickly we learned it.
This is when you stop
or where, as spiders kept
knitting in the doorframe
of the antique dealer’s shop.
It was a toss between
the china plate—how you
wanted to douse it with thick
wine and sage—or the likeness
of your hog’s-head girl, down
in the mouth, nickel plate
on a forties cigar case.
And what you kept in it
or would have. Your studies
in charcoal: fancy carp in still
pond. Two sheets of one song.
Dust hung to the rafters,
a crack in the door panes
and what it made of us.
