the kitchen sits
in fruit soup…
steamed apricot
mango shadow

down thru spinning
smoke into hot light
blink beat

body ends dangle
lead eye skin cement
high on tongue

night pasted among
buildings Styrofoam clouds
moon hung beneath billboard

rolling pass wet
rocked streets
soul tramp
diamond panhandlers watch
paper birds slices of
the daily news drift in air

comes cool ether
whispers up door
climbing dusty corridor

tree windows lapping lisp
door slams again noise again
then none void nothing syncopates
noise again door slams tree bare frozen

caught in the image of 7 candles
within 7 candles flames of air
7 light bulbs growing out of each other
7 silver circles coined from 7 silver rings

clear as blazing sheets
of glass yet
vague as dust
an ice cube on wood table
in front of crushed velvet
melt
poured
peeled

when this sky now boiling with
stars is strapped black
in pinched air thru sucked mind
swimming pass spaced time
will be one silent
note up.

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Spectrum, three Bright Spring Press Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane Publications. She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net. Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses.