3 Poems by Tresha Haefner

I Wanted to Stay Longer in the Oak Villa

where clouds billowed up

from the blue hips of mountain,

the oaks dropped leaves

over the bridge.

There was a river of violins

and hurtling cry of quail, struggling

through the sage.

I counted eight cows standing,

picturesque as statues, chiseled into the field

for the sake of beauty.

Over the fence a rose bush erupted

in girlish syllables, waterfall of temptation.

The sharp beak of a bird of paradise,

needling the air.

I wanted to sleep under that oak,

like sleeping under a God-sized chandelier,

receiving its blessings of seeds.

The hills wrestled

with their covering of clouds;

the clouds cooed into a distraction of doves.

There were no memories here.

No ants carrying in the news of the day,

which bomb had blown the peace away from horizons,

which country was now torn to blame.

The little droplets of rain hammered

their silver hammers on the doors of the moment.

Inside a smell of juniper

and red kisses came out of the kitchen.

But I let the coffee burn,

let the sky hug the hips of the mountain,

let the grasshopper jump

from a leaf into the broken castle of my heart.

Feathers flaunted their color

and quail launched themselves over fences,

like harmless grenades chortling

their wild shrapnel into song.


Mistake of Hemispheres

I am the manmade artifice surrounded by longitudes

drawn up around my broken face like the broken teeth of a cage.

I am the map.

The caves of Neanderthal and blood of your vineyards covers me.

I am mystery.

Mistakable for the artery of earth.

I am a cataclysm of iron. A bleeding hand held up out of dirt.

Palm pressed against a French cave under the horn.

I am statues stoked into fires. I am a frenzy of butterflies

beating their cacophony of wings against the jar.

I am map, a mistake of hemispheres sliced through the roiling seas.

The footprints of first woman caught, irrevocable as a firefly in the hardened sap of my skin.

I am all kings and monarchs, and map-makers, candles, closed doors of German castles,

ramparts, battering rams, bridges, drawings, deals made and broken and perforated over time.

I am rose compass. A ship bleating through the careful crash of waves.

I am the caravan of grapes and oils and stone, carbon atoms, time pieces, frozen Mesopotamian

blood, bones, carved up walls of cities, beads, broken windows, church steeples, slaves chained

together, thrown off a ship, going, gut wrenched, down, down, down

in the whisper of the isthmus outside of Africa.

I am the dachshund and the graveyard where the dachshund fell.

I am calm.

I am calamity.

I am the imprint of a saint’s Latin name, circumnavigating the page like a plague of fish.

The perspiration of kings, the cobra lined crown of the dead pharaoh, caught in the sand where

the children dig for rocks and palomino bones.

I am catacombs.

I am the plebian night horse riding bareback through stars, tripping over the Teutonic syllables of

your forgotten daughter, strapped beautiful into the cataclysm of night.

I am the descendant of Cain, of cabaret dancers, of bawdy women

and their balding lovers

intrigued by desire.

I am miracle and fire.

I am map. Put me away. You will hear me still.

I am a whale, swollen with sound, deep, deep down singing like a Buddhist monk in a monastery

Aum, Aum, Aum.

The Anglican Aumen.


Pleasure Pocket

Once in Mississippi a flying fish leapt up, as if to answer

a question I had posed in class.

Where shall I go to forget?

It twisted in the air,

then dropped back into the flow of time.

The word for courage is man with a spear.

The word for peace is woman with a roof overhead.

My Buddhist friend tells me I should learn haiku.

How to pack all those cities and boa constrictors

into twelve of my favorite sounds.

I prefer origami. Folding, and refolding the ocean

until it is the shape I want.

House. Steam ship.

Long-necked crane,

unable to fly from my hand.


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Tresha Faye Haefner’s poetry appears, or is forthcoming in several journals and magazines, most notably Blood Lotus, The Cincinnati Review, Hunger Mountain, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Radar, Rattle and TinderBox. Her work has garnered several accolades, including the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, and a 2012 nomination for a Pushcart.

Tresha Haefner