More on: Jennifer Atkinson

Five thousand miles of wind and unbounded / / main arrested and framed as a square— / something the size of something / / knowable, even known.

From The Parables of Mary Magdalene It is like a child asleep outside in her basket, shaded from late afternoon sun, veiled against evening flies, under her parents’ loving watch. Night is coming down, silently, like a worm on its strand of silk. The wind picks up. Let me feed her before we go inside,…

Even so the peaches are ripe, their pelts cat’s tongue to my touch. Even so the fierce poppies tremble. Even so every night a dense blue like cold stones in my mouth. Even so death rides the air, flitting and veering like bats, brushing my outstretched arms, in passing. Even so I dreamed the dream…

From The Parables of Mary Magdalene It is like a single cherry tree, surrounded with fences and growing in an orchard of cherry trees. The fruit of the one tree is no redder or less red than the other trees’ fruit. Where its bark has cracked, sap oozes out, forming amber beads that harden in…