Jaclyn Piudik
Winter 2023 | Poetry
Four Poems
Wombs
Before language, I am water. Uncurled, unclothed. A fathom.
Chromosomal allegory. In my amniotic lair: without gravity, rigidity,
pangs of incompleteness.
About chambers, homes, maelstroms. About wandering, lying fetal,
afraid of touch. A preference for darkness, matrices, the movement of
stone. Ambient vowels.
*
C closed womb open wound caesarean section broken clavicle
broken chora cords C caveat Catskills childhood wrested
cleave collateral mis- conception Ɔ
*
Another conceived lives in her. After me. But he will not be borne.
*
Without the m/other body mirror relinquishes seminal mercies
questions of faith of fluency in utero and ex
*
mother daughter moth(daught)er daughter mother
*
Drowsy. My favourite doll. She wears a pink onesie with white
polka dots. Pull her string, she wails, giggles, or whines: I want
another drink of water. Her sentences are fully formed.
She never asks for milk.
*
Hunger quickens conveys no ovum no blood only shadow-
portraiture fruitlessness.
Words detach themselves
from misdemeanors, germinate
in oceans, blistered light.
I write to be born.
Disenchanted vistas: a ululation
bedouin music in the bend of a knee the third of days
how dark it fevers me heaving dialects in a delphic tangle
and what the present presents only yearning
for another kind of rest water’s sensation in a cracked cup
the candle that smells nothing like spring rain everything
like a girl’s crush a mouthful of salt nail parings
laminate monotones reveal the lie of bygone visions
belief in what i thought language could do if i gave it up
or spoke in the subjunctive alone missed out on certainty
where this garland of thistle took me back to mercy’s
stale lexicon a sleep-stained sweater dyed orphan blue
Deviant Mirror)
and the last ligature always less ample
dwells on bedlammed senses the cold boudoir
cosmetic labyrinths voluptuous lovewear
in cinders luscious at the nethermost volcano
elusive array cubed in arrest the left-handed erasure of recall:
immeasurable beauty a ghostly reversion
delay, my imposter – the precious ideal
one finicky star gossamer conclusions
a mishap etched in likeness
(o, travesty of years
Startlings.
None final but the wounded sky
Chairs appear where you least expect them
Ceramic breaks
scraping the hitherto and the whensoever of this thigh
that rill and its erasure
Debt the weighting of a heart
Susurration cut and rooted
images of faith entering earwise
Noxious are the seven parts of night
Sweet sister silence: the sequel that undoes grace
Chaste little stones mimic the body
River-spittle on your velveteen slippers
Lipstick left on the edge of the copula
The kiss of leaves upon an ankle
A chapfallen alibi
& the pure chaos of goodbyes
En Face
Jaclyn Piudik is the author of To Suture What Frays (Kelsay Books 2017) and Seduction: Out of Eden (Kelsay Books 2022) co-authored with Janet R. Kirchheimer, as well as three chapbooks, most recently, the corpus undone in the blizzard (Espresso Chapbooks 2019). Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including New American Writing, Columbia Poetry Review, Burning House and Barrow Street. She received a New York Times Fellowship for Creative Writing as well as the Alice M. Sellers Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her poem “Clepsydra” won the 2022 Very Small Verse Prize from the League of Canadian Poets. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies and Jewish Studies from the University of Toronto. Her collection of translations of Paul Celan’s French poems, is forthcoming from Beautiful Outlaw Press in 2024. Piudik teaches creative and academic writing at the University of Toronto and has a private mentoring practice. She also works as an editor of poetry and academic monographs. Find her online at https://www.jaclynpiudik.com/.