Kristina Jipson's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Agni, American Letters & Commentary, At Length, Chicago Review, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, "How Void of Miracles," was released from Hand Held Editions in 2009.
from Lock, Means
we learned we could make something there by saying
it wasn’t. I don’t know what changed, she said—
our winter collapsed into a series of single instants punctuated
by a white stripe drawn from the sky to our fingers
thrown out against the wind. And here, that same white
between the birches eclipses the subject, which must be us.
What we meant was, pay attention to us. In the same way
I want to say something about what it’s like in this corner
and how I want it otherwise. Or that this means
getting farther from how it happened. We posed
with our arms touching exactly in the center of the frame
as if we didn’t know the light would leak there. She said
we were safe, but the boat beat hard against the green
between the canyon walls and the pots fell from their hooks
to the linoleum. Walking the other way was not a solution.
toss our hair & gorge on cider.