Pick-a-Poem: “Kindling”

Happy Wednesday, blog readers! Around here, Wednesdays mean new poetry. If you’re looking for something new to read, or perhaps a new poet to discover, you’ve come to the right place. All of our weekly poems come from Poetry Daily, which is a great resource for finding new poetry. This week we’re featuring  Kindling by Sarah Rose Nordgren.

According to her bio, Sarah Rose Nordgren has written one collection of poetry, entitled Best Bones, which won the 2013 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Her work has appeared in publications such as Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, and Best New Poets 2011. She has received support from the Breadloaf Writers Conference and the Ohio Arts Council. You can learn more on her website, sarahrosenordgren.com.

Kindling by Sarah Rose Nordgren

The details are as yet unclear
as to the how and where—

how to arrange the bones
with their ends touching like so,

and exactly where to conjure
the handful of dark purple

heart—and the timing of it.
See, the parts won’t fit

like we were taught. The cloud
folds into a box without

assistance, cools smooth and heavy
like milk glass in the child’s head.

We should probably fill
the rest in beneath it until

it looks presentable, add meat
to the rough frame we’ve made,

but I also sort of like him this way—
loose and preliminary

in his conception, a sketch
of slender branches

caught in a river eddy
on their way elsewhere. Better,

maybe, to leave him like this,
unfeeling and questionless.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s featured poem! For more posts like this one, click here.

— Jet Fuel Blog Editor, Mary Egan