Poetry from Joan Baranow

Read More: A brief Q&A with Joan Baranow

Flown

“…the quantum connection between two particles can persist even if
they are on opposite sides of the universe.” – Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos

None of the baby books said that
love could get stretched out, your sons
so far away the elastic won’t snap,
the old outfits like loose skin.
You’d call them back but they’ve got
their own errands to tend, stuff to carry
up the front steps, their own doors to open and shut.
Time did this despite what they say
about being entwined. One day
they’re holding the tow rope up the slope,
the next it’s black diamond runs,
no more tucking in, the arrow’s flown,
a photon touches down, the other flies off,
you’re left with the quiver,
its shiver and flash. Like when
you hear the ring right before
the cell phone pings. Hello? Is that you?
Have you eaten? Have you got your hat?
Don’t forget to feed the cat.
Who knew we’d be hitched together
by numbers jumbled and reglued
faster than a shout
from the next room, and still
so much heart left to lose.

Interstellar

“I dreamt I was somewhere else
and woke up there” – Dean Young

Peonies are opening
and closing like shy nebulae.
Or is that in a dream? It’s hard
to know what’s real when
when a mother vanishes
from her own mass.
Like a dead planet, the self
adhesion of her body
broke apart. Stars form
from clouds that collapse.
Thought is made of the same
stuff that sloughs plum leaves.
The photons of this poem
brush your neurons
the way she’d touch the crocus
buds with something fine
troubling her mind, when
all at once her cells in droves
froze up.

Stuck

“Spring is the season that aches.” – Rebecca Foust

Seventeen years and you’re still
stuck in that same hole, no one
comes to console or carry you out,
you’re eaten up, marrow scraped clean,
your bones would gleam
if brought back into the Suwannee sun.
But no one sweeps the long leaf
pine needles from your stone,
no one leans against that tree, remembering.
Is that what you wanted?
To be anonymous at last
without even your cigarettes or cats?
And what of us, our memories
we speak of less and less?
Is that what death is—
a slow forgetfulness?
Each year the seasons taunt us,
trees and grasses leaf out,
a crocus opens its cup in the frost,
all the buried bulbs sprout
but you do not.

As If

There are mornings when, lying in bed,
my wrinkled wrists crossed below my chin,
I see you asleep in our guest room
that last visit when the cancer crawled
from organ to organ, eating you from within.
I’m nearly the age you were when
those tumors took you. O mother,
your liver-spots adorn my arms,
your wide hips dent the bed.
It seems something of you must be in me
but not enough to wrest you back
from the mouths that now digest your flesh,
mindless in their task,
as if you were merely matter.