Kara Synhorst
INSIDE
In the whole forest, you were just
a fat rabbit caught in a fallen, hollow log.
You were just a bee in the
flower of a trumpet vine.
You were just things inside of
other things.
I rose up into the sky,
cold like the outer atmosphere,
and the anaesthesiologist
with his surgical beard net
like a cloud said
Tell me what we are doing.
And I said You are removing my
right fallopian tube
and he was satisfied but I wasn't
and so I added and the embryo
inside.
_____________________
THE QUEEN OF SILVER LININGS
I am the queen of the silver lining,
wearing a silver ermine cloak,
used, so the death only touches me
second-hand.
A silver line rings my iris,
has since birth,
and in my old age, silver begins
to crown my head with wiry,
coarse hairs that stand up
like a halo.
I am the queen of the silver lining
writing a bright future into every empty teacup,
every wrinkled palm,
every spiraled orange peel,
every bottomless pit.
I am the queen of the silver lining,
calling after you as you fall how you are
lucky to get to
fly.
A tribute to me
is a consolation prize.
______________________
POTENTIAL ENERGY
This is potential energy, the science teacher says.
Holds a ball aloft, fingers down
like a wrinkled-knuckle cage, holding gravity at bay
he pauses for effect, looks around.
The quiet moment at the top of the roller coaster's hill
The crack the spine makes when you open a book
Camping at dawn when the sun is hinting and the birds are still
The shimmering shock of a lover's first look
Packing a bag, making love, saying yes
A seed in the soil in early spring
Opening his fingers, the science teacher says
this is kinetic energy
______________________
DAUGHTER
Body of work, body of water,
Body and mind, long lean daughter.
Tall little sapling, birch or beech,
Jumping, climbing out of reach.
When did you master chain link fence,
Pumping swings, unzipping tents?
Belly rounds, then arcs and flattens
Hair floating up, then combed and battened.
Licking fingers, learns to snap,
Pat-a-cake needs crosshatch clap.
Ink ladders up the frame of the door,
Little muscles strain your core.
Soft armpits, smooth nape
Dirty toes, bathtowel cape.
Round bottom, my side's genes,
Running round our secret scenes.
_____________________
ORIGAMI
B needs a band-aid to
cover his hickey.
B has a cigarette burn
on his hand.
B needs water, to run
to the restroom.
B can't sit: B has to stand
B needs reminders to
take off his cap.
B doesn't know where
his papers have gone.
B moved from Fresno
to live with his brother.
B can't come to school with
those all-red clothes on.
B greets me each morning
with a serious handshake
careful to protect
that cigarette burn.
Instead of assignments,
he folds origami—
a boat, so he has
some means of return.
_____________________
In the whole forest, you were just
a fat rabbit caught in a fallen, hollow log.
You were just a bee in the
flower of a trumpet vine.
You were just things inside of
other things.
I rose up into the sky,
cold like the outer atmosphere,
and the anaesthesiologist
with his surgical beard net
like a cloud said
Tell me what we are doing.
And I said You are removing my
right fallopian tube
and he was satisfied but I wasn't
and so I added and the embryo
inside.
_____________________
THE QUEEN OF SILVER LININGS
I am the queen of the silver lining,
wearing a silver ermine cloak,
used, so the death only touches me
second-hand.
A silver line rings my iris,
has since birth,
and in my old age, silver begins
to crown my head with wiry,
coarse hairs that stand up
like a halo.
I am the queen of the silver lining
writing a bright future into every empty teacup,
every wrinkled palm,
every spiraled orange peel,
every bottomless pit.
I am the queen of the silver lining,
calling after you as you fall how you are
lucky to get to
fly.
A tribute to me
is a consolation prize.
______________________
POTENTIAL ENERGY
This is potential energy, the science teacher says.
Holds a ball aloft, fingers down
like a wrinkled-knuckle cage, holding gravity at bay
he pauses for effect, looks around.
The quiet moment at the top of the roller coaster's hill
The crack the spine makes when you open a book
Camping at dawn when the sun is hinting and the birds are still
The shimmering shock of a lover's first look
Packing a bag, making love, saying yes
A seed in the soil in early spring
Opening his fingers, the science teacher says
this is kinetic energy
______________________
DAUGHTER
Body of work, body of water,
Body and mind, long lean daughter.
Tall little sapling, birch or beech,
Jumping, climbing out of reach.
When did you master chain link fence,
Pumping swings, unzipping tents?
Belly rounds, then arcs and flattens
Hair floating up, then combed and battened.
Licking fingers, learns to snap,
Pat-a-cake needs crosshatch clap.
Ink ladders up the frame of the door,
Little muscles strain your core.
Soft armpits, smooth nape
Dirty toes, bathtowel cape.
Round bottom, my side's genes,
Running round our secret scenes.
_____________________
ORIGAMI
B needs a band-aid to
cover his hickey.
B has a cigarette burn
on his hand.
B needs water, to run
to the restroom.
B can't sit: B has to stand
B needs reminders to
take off his cap.
B doesn't know where
his papers have gone.
B moved from Fresno
to live with his brother.
B can't come to school with
those all-red clothes on.
B greets me each morning
with a serious handshake
careful to protect
that cigarette burn.
Instead of assignments,
he folds origami—
a boat, so he has
some means of return.
_____________________
Thanks, Kara, for today's poems! Kara Synhorst is a lifelong Sacramentan who has never lived more than seven miles from her childhood home. She got her B.A., teaching credential, and M.F.A. from CSU Sacramento and now teaches English at Luther Burbank High. She lives with her husband Reza and daughter Azadeh and two ornery cats. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Now, Convergence, The Found Poetry Review, unFold, Phantom Kangaroo, Sacramento News and Review, and Susurrus.
_____________________
Today's LittleNip:
MICRO
—Kara Synhorst
I allow myself only
moments of micro-grief
mourning doves light on the laundry line
to grant me some relief.
_____________________
—Medusa
Supermoon, 2013
—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
[For more about this week's supermoon, see
