2 Poems by McKenna Themm

chiaroscuro 

It’s still alive — the curling end of all

the smoking fumes. It twirls between my ribs,

those narrow cogs, and fits across the tall

and broken pieces of the clock. My hips

ticking, make minute movements in the night 

until the cigarette dies where my lips 

once met: the interplay of dark and light,

until these bony arms disintegrate. 

The ash drifts off some ways, just like a kite 

catching the midnight wind above so late

passing the brittle seconds into hours.

The carbon fog unravels all this weight. 

After Skull with a Cigarette, Vincent van Gogh

the machine 

I’ve heard it can mend wheat after it’s been trampled. Will it sew together what remains of the roots and kernels? Does it strengthen the stems so they can stretch again toward the moon framed in blue and every shade of black? It sanctifies the sky through which crows hover. Will it trim the borders of this four-cornered canvas? Could it be carried on my shoulder as I traipse ankle-deep through the mud? Could it withstand the pecking of the wind upon my face as I approach the crossroads? It breaks to pieces in my arms when I choose the right path — the one swirling in leaves from the pecan tree. Would it be an omen if I chose the left path? If I were to pluck a feather from the tail of a crow as it passes, could it mend that as well? Could it sew the feather back onto the body, as if it had never been removed? Where is the machine? What is it? 

After Wheatfield With Crows, Vincent van Gogh

McKenna Themm is graduating with her MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry from San Diego State University in May 2022. Her poems have been published by several journals, including The Poet, Ekphrastic Review, Bryant Literary Review, pacificREVIEW, The Headlight Review. Her chapbook Ever Yours, Vincent is forthcoming from dancing girl press. She has been nominated for the AWP Intro Journals 2022 Award. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of boats against the current, the managing editor at The Los Angeles Review, a Content Strategist at Archer Education, and the MFA Director’s Assistant at SDSU. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @kennathemm. 

14 March 2022