Della Watson and Jessica Wickens

“3

Dear Crow

This note is precision”

3.1

benjamin,

forgive me, i’ve neglected our vocabulary. the days’ little worries kept me from cackle
practice. pallor was a dinner. so now i owe you two and want to speak twice at once.

but i am a traditionalist. (much like green is the new march.)

–oh the tender massacre of winter.

[for example, in this warmth, i forget my eastern friends. i forget them always, by
keeping their names in my heart. and when my heart flies off, i use those names as
muscular substitution. see my face flushed? yes? i’m vein-full of ignored learnings,
amnesiatic embarrassments. it pumps me on, it beats me. how we cried that winter.]

how we built a christmas fire and _______________________________________.

now is a beach blanket. how my spindle crow’s feet sink in the sand.

it is time to grow old.

i am glad for this.

dear benjamin, my friend,
crow from here.

3.2

Dear Crow

This note is precision
propped up in the rain
real purple

consider it the back break
of heaviest engineering
real decisions grow tall

we noticed this one
consider this the tough
times, in sister cities

folks really using their chairs
to the music
exhaling around you

– Benjamin

3.3

dear benjamin,

this hibernation is natural, of course.

of course, snow no longer applies so

are we banned from the word?

it still exists, and people wear sweaters, little ribbons,

an image of ice on the calendar.

why can’t we, too, sleep?

it rains. that much we know. and long nights.

of course, i’m talking circles around it–

i have been consumed, actually.

i speak from a belly. the beast allows

my tiny voice to flee in burps and coughs.

how long? i am punching the stomach,

but i doubt escape without some change.

i see an organ that mirrors the sun, rising,

clearly,

the stockholm syndrome setting in.

yours,
crow

3.4

Crow:

The sight of my own
flesh startles me
call it
an unseasonable frost but
it clears the air

enumerated days
of wheat, and why winter
we slide back and forth
dancing in a smaller realm

the doctors sniffing
around us like dogs

yours,
Benjamin

3.5

Benjamin, here I explain the charges
and the pain of

my child whose parents spread like the wind
(banded, flight recorded)

now spring
is the time to build–
to ready the forks for unwelcome eyes,
to cut the riff raff with a chisel

i’m swallowing your orders
with hope of health–

critical minerals
for muscular development,

pressure applied,

points taken.
i will avoid
your dangers:

the dream plan attained –revisited resolution
the clenched hands –misplaced holding
the band that won’t march –stationary motion

but i’ll be sunk/tied as long as
i can’t cut the string from my foot.

oh help me
i’ll never leave her

–The Crow

Jessica Wickens’ poems have appeared in Little Red Leaves, Eleven Eleven, Floating Holiday, The Whirligig, Spell, Switchback, and Blink. She studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and creative writing at California College of the Arts. She co-edits the literary journal Monday Night, recently founded Skeptic Press and sits on the board of Small Press Traffic. A native of Michigan, she currently works at a legal services center and lives in Oakland with human and feline companions.

Della and Jessica are currently working on collaborative a poetry collection.

Della Watson holds degrees from the University of Kentucky and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the co-founder of the reconstruction room, a Chicago-based reading and performance series. Her poetry has appeared in Limestone, Make, The Hat, Denver Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky, Parcel, nanomajority, Free Verse, The New Yinzer, eye-rhyme, alice blue, elimae, Left Facing Bird, Sorry for Snake, Mirage, word for/ word and others. She blogs at Wunderkammer and The Green Life.