Sarah Vandervennet
2 Poems
Cover Art: Deborah Luster, L.S.P. 37, from the series One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana, 1999. MOMA
TINY NEEDLES
|
we met in every country
I remembered his thick neck then I came to his home where he tended sutures & the grass he popped the heads of blue bottles with his heel on the beach on the beach in queensland we found a dead dog it stormed we walked up the mountain almost to the top I looked at him he looked past me he said the view was just as good if you get stung sepulchral mist ocean cliffs so much distance for a land so truncated & young our rain-faces the wrong way like strands of loose thread once I ate jellyfish it was fibrous a bloated plant green grass green ants his pearl against my teeth his mother said he was born tongue-tied I wonder if he has eyes his calloused heels his calloused hands I bite his tongue I can’t get drunk I watch him pearl I watch him calm water warm but not enough to burn it’s not the worst thing in the world |
OH WELL, ONEIRATAXIA |
|
|
I went to the ocean and didn’t feel anything
It’s not the same when you’re doing it for exercise Sometimes I hear someone say my name right in my ear and loudly I think this must be the world calling me but when I try to call back I always dial incorrectly I haven’t held a seashell to my ear ever since I learned it’s the sound of my own heart beating |
Sarah Vandervennet received her MFA in poetry from The New School. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has appeared in Potluck Magazine, Phantom, Metatron, Electric Cereal, Reality Hands, and elsewhere.
