Mad Weightless

Breasting the road
at the fledge of hoarfrost.

South aimlessly with a pinging.
Hexagrams, one goes, falls.

Driving wetlands to anywhere.
This ground to Mars. Deep reality

driving margins. You, their
comfort. Light nowhere.

The road, all silks afire.
Tucking ashes into dying light.

Source Text: Don Domanski. “In the Province of Tharsis.” All Our Wonders Unavenged. 2nd printing. London, ON: Brick Books, 2007.

Allowed to Wander

This man will lie between everything.
Thoughts, like streamlets,

blood, the little sibyls.
Under the floorboards,

can’t speak, the hummingbird
pressed like a rose.

God gathers, death gathers,
feather flying into motion.

Source Text: Don Domanski. “A Hummingbird’s Heart Beats 1260 Times A Minute.” All Our Wonders Unavenged. 2nd printing. London, ON: Brick Books, 2007.

Jessica Van de Kemp (BA, B.Ed, MA) is a 2014 Best of the Net nominee. Her poetry chapbook, Spirit Light, is the second release in a new series from The Steel Chisel. Her poetry appears most recently in: The Wayfarer, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Written River, Vallum, Hello Horror, Unbroken Journal, Halcyon Magazine, and the Switch (the Difference) Anthology from Kind of a Hurricane Press. The recipient of a BlackBerry Scholarship in English Language and Literature and the winner of a TA Award for Excellence in Teaching, Jessica is currently pursuing a PhD in Rhetoric at the University of Waterloo. Website: jessvdk.wordpress.com & Twitter: @jess_vdk