Jessica Dawson

The Structure of a Sentence

You asked me for new words to explain this place.
I built them as described, and they were devastating.
I was dying to see them, still warm and cupped in your hands,
to see your face soften when you tried them on.

Of course I managed to drop them;
of course they tumbled down the hillside.

I searched the bramble for hours, but those words never meant
to let themselves be held captive. It’s best that you didn’t see them –
you’d never forgive me these substitutes. Dull and piled in this box,
they don’t look like much; but honestly, these new words lie in wait.

And look - they've already taken a shine to you,
what with all of the showy arching, curling themselves around your incisors.

In a mouth like yours, they could be both map and compass.
They could describe the slap of stones beneath our feet, those luminous eyes
beyond the porch light, our ready dance with wrenching tongues of undertow.

Even as a girl she dreamt of
his big paws crushing the grass
below her window,
heard her name become
a rough circle in his mouth.
She waited.

 

 

Jessica Dawson is a modern-day Wendy. She abhors self-promotion but requires an audience at all times. She reads the dictionary for fun, speaks only in degrees of sarcasm and is more vulture than falcon, really.