By: Heather Quinn
to shimmer & fall
some of us have stars for neurons
that shoot in jagged
lines across the night sky
they fall
like dying fireflies in our backyards
where we collect them, place each in a glass jar
lined with down feathers
warmed by candlelight
a makeshift incubator
& we wait
heavy as stone
slow as s l u gs
foggy as San Francisco
we stay in bed for days, consider jumping
from the highest bridge
e v e n t u a l l y
our hibernating neurons sit up
rub their eyes
drink strong coffee straight from the pot
& shoot the sky again like dynamite
sending us flying like trapeze artists
& when they
f
a
l
l
we fall too
into the tangled nets
of our bodies
willing the knotted fibers to hold
the snow
after C.D .Wright
the father the window the night
the light the baby the sleep
the wail the hands the rock
the window the father the white
the word the light the shoulder
the moon the warmth the night
the chair the lap the rock
the cold the baby the hands
the light the scent the father
the wail the hands the hush
the moon the chair the lap
the rock the white the word
the snow
the snowed
the snowing
Heather Quinn is a poet living in San Francisco who loves the act of layering memory, imagination, images, the political & spiritual into her work. She often thinks of writing as collage-making. Recent and upcoming publishing credits are 42 Miles Press, Burning House Press, Ghost City Review, Headline Poetry & Press, Kissing Dynamite, Prometheus Dreaming & Raw Art Review. You can find her on Twitter at @hquinnpoet www.heatherquinnpoet.com
"I wrote both poems around the same time at the end of 2019. the snow came first. I’ve been working on a chapbook and was trying to generate material. My dad, who died four years ago, keeps coming up in my writing and figures strongly in my chapbook.
One of my first memories is waking up in the middle of the night crying, and then sitting on my Dad’s lap as he teaches me the word snow. It’s hard to write about this without sounding sentimental. I remembered C.D. Wright’s poem The Flame and used this great form she provided as a way to keep the memory almost dreamlike, leaning heavy on image and sound. When I read it aloud, it reminds me of a lullaby.
to shimmer and fall came from I don’t know where. I must have been thinking of falling stars as a metaphor for neurons gone haywire, and then that image just took on a life of its own. Vision is my strongest sense, and almost always comes first when I work on a poem. My writing process is often an attempt to translate the images that are constantly forming and shape shifting behind my eyes to the page."