FORTUNE

 

When the money was gone,

we buried empty coffee cans in the yard.

The sky was broad and green.

The flag shook on its pole

like a body after a fall.

You said, pain is a door.

The pulse of the earth

grew less and less.

In our small, heated room

we lay in each other’s hands

like two shadows trying to take root.

What fell to earth fell quickly.

The horses passed from roof to roof,

going in and out of windows.

We watched as they came towards us,

their lean faces white with ash.

 
 
 

OHIO

 

Tell me how the song is called that draws each day.

And how you tucked the lake into my chest.

For years I have been walking farther east.

The only sound the blood in my own ears.

I know it isn’t light that overtakes the cities.

My body was a field I gave away to wooden men.

The weather greens the copper, blacks the tin.

Stalks of milkweed bloom inside the heat of trains.

Tell me that the sadness would have found me either way.

Things grew from you. Yes, I have an offering to make.

 

 

—-

 

 

 

Claire Cronin is a songwriter and poet from Los Angeles and the author of the chapbook THERESE (H_NGM_N Books, 2014). Some of her work can be found in issues of DIALOGIST, NightBlock, Vinyl Poetry, and The Volta. She is Director of Digital Media for H_NGM_N and an MFA student at UC Irvine. For more: www.clairecronin.com.