clear cut
by Mara Adamitz Scrupe
Highly Commended in the Bare Fiction Prize for Poetry 2017
in the ambush in the middle
of nowhere we go in for low intimacy/ bowels/ duodenum
jejunum ileum
we lie close
in the soil & never call it dirt & after the onslaught
the waste
we drag our babies in from shoved/ dozed/ from
the way – out – woods (as if they won’t notice our abject
pointlessness) we waltz back in sickened
but hopeful/ optimistic as though replanting/ prettifying will cure
our broken hearts poplar saplings likewise
valiant volunteer nursed post –
devastation
alongside our Black Birch pair secure/ softening
the cold slap
of a backcountry ambush & clear cut hedging we dig
our holes deeper signifying
signifying remarkable enticements & martyrs once
happened here here ruins & bastard colonial
boys burned off the first growth guts awrithe tawny worms’
immurements entrails thin as stick
slick as swarm the bee – keeper’s shim hard – nose
fillers – up
we look for help & partnership in wild animals’
eyes/ skimmers – off of scorch & blackened/ grazers –
off the sinewiest/ wooers – up of the supplest shoots
Mara Adamitz Scrupe
clear cut was Highly Commended in the Bare Fiction Prize for Poetry 2017, as chosen by Wayne Holloway-Smith.