{"id":2306,"date":"2018-10-28T14:52:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T14:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/?page_id=2306"},"modified":"2018-11-01T23:03:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T23:03:51","slug":"solomon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/solomon\/","title":{"rendered":"Solomon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t4X2\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tan online poetry journal\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto \"Silfra, Iceland\" by Melissa Hotchkiss\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDeclination From Self to Self\t\t\t\t\t<\/h5>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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by Jordana Solomon<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

a pecha kucha after Terrance Hayes<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[DEMURE]<\/p>\n

She still lives in the town we grew up in, with her girlfriend now, the one
\nwith the abusive mother. We discuss this over lukewarm soup as the lady
\nbrings our check. She does not mind the commute, thirty plus minutes
\nin a small red car to feel at the helm of something, the brazen, rusty divider
\nto the left and a few Canadian birds headed off with the gale.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[NEARLY]<\/p>\n

Down a few states is the couple from the summer, a man and his penchant
\nfor the swing of a hammer, a woman and her penchant for the man. I hear
\nthey\u2019re using river boats these days to get to work and then home, or maybe
\nit\u2019s that they are building the boat for money and sleeping on the planks at night,
\non<\/em> becoming more like in<\/em> with each bit assembled.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[TEMPER]<\/p>\n

Last week the coyotes went rabid forcing school to close. This was so that children
\ndid not end up bloody and crazed on the sidewalks, and so our mayor had time
\nto reassure the neighbors, who\u2019d been buying up all the canned goods from the store.
\nWhen the last hound was eventually put down, they held a small service, invited everyone
\non the street to pour a tin of tomatoes, the pavement going red with doltish worry.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[VESTIGE]<\/p>\n

Everything looks bleak before spring sets in in the suburbs, everyone
\nis a cragged branch and the mailman can\u2019t stop taking his coat on and off
\nand on and off. The blue bag that is a cradle to the paper sprung a leak this morning
\nso my headlines came out blurry. I am sure there is a sorrow in there somewhere.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[BOWED]<\/p>\n

My small dog is dying. This is going to ruin my father. The resign of his subway
\ncar nod, his round and peppering scalp, the moment twenty years back in Nicaragua
\nwhen he whispered about the revolution and ten women stopped to look, his obsession
\nwith flashlights and a dwindling tolerance for spice. I cannot imagine the secrets between them.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[CROON]<\/p>\n

A small while can be spent deciding where to throw the peach pit, but I don\u2019t
\nwant it gone forever. This could be my grandmother\u2019s finger, her thumb,
\nwrinkled and sweet. She forgot to call me on my birthday like her house key,
\nso I wrap what\u2019s left of the fruit in an old shirt and save it for the holidays.
\nShe will know what it means.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[QUIET]<\/p>\n

Every man in my family loves ties, and I\u2019m thinking maybe this
\nis why I want to be one. A tie, that is, so close to the neck. The push and pull
\nof breath like something that is real or almost real, but never both. I read today
\nthat schizophrenics can tickle themselves, the consequence when every touch
\nis foreign. Sometimes I want to kiss myself, right in the jugular.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[REVERENCE]<\/p>\n

Depending on how hungry I am, I could eat a whole fish. This would include
\nits fins and various organs, the brine of the water, the brothers in embryo
\nwho disappeared to Alaska, and each memory of myself at age seven. To sit and wait
\nfor a thing that you know you\u2019ll throw back, only a child would not call this patience.
\nIt\u2019s like at night, when you drink if you\u2019re thirsty, or when you don\u2019t, in the case that you\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[ILK]<\/p>\n

Sometimes it feels so holy to smell garlic, like we were made for this
\nand this alone. Similarly, I have taken on all my mother\u2019s superstitions.
\nCollecting stones until they cover the house, finding a sibyl in the bird\u2019s
\nflint beak. There are animals alive that can sense things in you
\nwithout knowing why, and then there are those that smell sadness.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[FISSURE]<\/p>\n

Unaccustomed to the workings of an airplane, one could mistake their body
\nfor a cockpit. A vessel of direction, always bounded, slightly sinister. It is not
\nas if we all haven\u2019t wished it. In a dream I had occasionally last fall, there was a room
\nwith thousands of levers, each one coated thinly in a layer of honey.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[JUNCTION]<\/p>\n

They are painting the walls of my kitchen in the same color, only mixed
\nby different hands. This is where I cracked my chin open, here next to the oven,
\nI was riding my sister\u2019s back. Of course she has never forgotten. Used to talk
\nto the disposal like, how\u2019s it taste down there<\/em> and to what in this house <\/em>
\nhave you been a witness. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[ELLIPSIS]<\/p>\n

There is a desolate beauty in the underpass, so I cry. Historically speaking,
\nblue does not exist without a name, so I have started to say it, all the time. Blue
\nand blue and blue and blue and the second in the tunnel when the rain quiets
\nlike blue and blue. If I was an architect I would talk, all the time.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[COMPRESS]<\/p>\n

From what I gather, adobe is just another way to say sing to me, but in a very
\nlow voice. My baby will never be half mine, half hers, so I make walls of clay
\neverywhere I go, control the light that gets in. Like score and slip, everything
\nby hand. There must be some parable for this life, however brown.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[STUPOR]<\/p>\n

Time is all about the minute now. I know this when the man who fills up
\nmy tank goes on to his second sigh, as he does, every day that I\u2019ve known him.
\nI like to think whoever takes him at night does so unimaginably gently,
\nslim fingers unfastening his watch and the gasoline slowly pouring through the sheets.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[LONGING]<\/p>\n

There are no cornfields where I\u2019m from. Only moss and a knowledge
\nthat the gutters lead straight to the river. Once, peeling hair from the neck
\nof a cob on the porch in early November, I considered the prospect
\nof gifting each kernel a spot in a singular grave. There are days now
\nand then when the thought of this seems to me my one greatest kindness.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[MURMUR]<\/p>\n

The cello, even when plucked, is tuned in perfect fifths. And my parents
\nhave started writing notes to each other. It\u2019s a nocturne at the dinner table
\nwith the timbre viscous between them. Put something on<\/em>, she says,
\nso we can dance like crows<\/em> who don\u2019t know we are crows.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[REMOTE]<\/p>\n

In moments of cursory doubt I seat myself in the freezer. Cold meats
\nand a fragment of chocolate, the place where the ice builds
\nits edges. I like the way my body can shiver and still remain noiseless,
\nas if it is posing a question. Like yesterday, my barber turned on the fan
\nand I asked if he thinks of me often.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\n\t<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\n
\n\t

Poet's Statement: This poem is the product of an ongoing rumination on the notion of a self divided. I have often felt in my writing, as in my being, a tug of war between faces\u2013\u2013one dark orange, heavy, mud-like; the other green, semitransparent, without weight. Reading Terrance Hayes' powerful poetic renderings of the presentation style pecha kucha<\/em> in his collection Lighthead<\/em>, I was immediately drawn to the fragmentary nature of the form, the vignettes at once distinct and named, and yet undeniably bound. I saw in this a space for something of a parley, a negotiation that eventually became \"Declination From Self to Self.\" <\/p>\n<\/span>\n

Bio:\u00a0Jordana Solomon is a lover of lemons. Originally from a small town on the Hudson River, she currently studies at Middlebury College and has previously attended The Breadloaf Writers' Conference as well as interned at Poets House in New York City. Her work has previously appeared in Santa Ana River Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4X2 an online poetry journal Photo “Silfra, Iceland” by Melissa Hotchkiss Declination From Self to Self by Jordana Solomon a pecha kucha after Terrance Hayes [DEMURE] She still lives in the town we grew up in, with her girlfriend now, the one with the abusive mother. We discuss this over lukewarm soup as the lady…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2306","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2440,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2306\/revisions\/2440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}