Three Poems by Leeanne Quinn
PN Review 252, March - April 2020
Smoke
Winter fills my lungs with smoke,
I breathe in the new year
in this old house. Winter of locked doors,
empty rooms, winter of ill winds,
thrashing rains. Winter,
was I always this afraid?
Smoke billows from the bonnet,
I think ‘house’ not ‘car.’
I think beautiful bonfire. I think
your blood into flames, your charts
into char. I think with your precision.
O how we both know precisely
more than the other now – you,
how to go, me, how to go without.
Yet, here you are
asking from across another winter’s
divide – are you okay?
Answer first and I swear…
Smoke billows into the black sky,
our lives for kindling, ash
will mark our loss in the morning.
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Not at All Like the Sea
‘The sea – is here, and – not here.’ — Marina Tsvetaeva
And what kind of silence is the silence
of seeing the sea behind glass as white
waves crash without sound, without.
The ridge of the waves is a ridge of ice
covering the ridge of a mountain,
the waves are tankers, or roads
revealed by tankers. Is that the sea?
That’s not the sea at all, not at all
like the sea. And, of course, how could it be?
The sea holds you horizontal,
what can I do with that? Waves
cannot be walked, the sea
can only bring me under,
like love. I want to be high
in the blue mountain,
I want to be the mountain, high
in the blue, above this soft,
above this silent sea.
September
Wasps, then rain. Below, streets clear
to a silent siren. Some citizens scatter,
others stand looking upwards.
Wasps nestle into the neck
of abandoned sugar canisters, the wood
of balconies sways.
In parks the remnants of summer
still – dug-up earth, a brittle mound
of clay, some small animal’s refuge.
The leaves here are beginning to fall.
Sun bleached, they swirl like shadows
in the Föhn, like shadows adjusting.
These poems by Leeanne Quinn are taken from PN Review 252, March - April 2020. Further contributions from Quinn are available in the archive to paying subscribers, as well as more poetry, features, reviews and reports from across the back catalogue.