On Writing #121 : Jennifer Baker

On Writing

Jennifer Baker 

 
Took years                   to fracture

                       this strata        fear of being looked over

*

trust     out on a limb              
turns lens         on memory's ossuaries

           

*

in the bush    where we  tapped trees              the pond my grandfather called          bottomless
its mirror          cradled canopy sway       its silted bottom a warning

once you start swimming                     you have to keep treading forever

drowning     open-mouthed     we tell

*

one of the men                       

hauled me back           into our tree   

scraped against             street-glow     in public 
petrified          I dropped my Coke

my first thought          my body is against the law

scraped against                        hard light
                                                tell them you're 18

                        against
                                    I got you out

                                               

scraped      up   worldly
                        over chasm      when the bough

                                                            breaks
           

*

traitor foliage 

                        tricked cover for quiet
                                    night's wide  electrified itch  

                                     
*

now he concedes                     I was the smart one despite his assumptions           at the time                 
I wonder what they were
*

entire fields     leap skyward

enormous turbine blades rotate     this process

             down     backroad     powerlines

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silence is

            the mirror-space between self & self
                         twinned in      repulsion & longing

*

I don't know why I'd tell

when explanation        fakes out         shelter             

except that justice       is a scrutiny     we step into
& my heels are still dirty
from digging in

                                                           

bullish between           vulnerability | erasure   

                                              witness | voyeur
                                                 wink & a no  

Jennifer Baker lives, writes, and teaches in Ottawa. Her first chapbook, Abject Lessons, was published by above/ground press in 2014. Her poetry, interviews, and reviews have been published in The Journal of Canadian Poetry, Ottawater, Dusie, The Bird, Philomela, and Illiterissuesixature, with a forthcoming review in The Bull Calf.