2 Poems by Suzanne Frischkorn

Nocturne

The coyotes create an auditory fence | two rowdy boys sound like a pack and some beings are happy | tonight. What scent do they catch? | Their howls echo | echo — yowls | this is their territory. It must have some view. Not like the view of the old Cape on the cliff, its shingles weathered driftwood gray. That view | a stream of exhaust | trucks | cars. On a clear day you can gaze at the strip mall. The view here | tonight | is the glow of my cigarette like the most boring firefly moving up and down, never zip, no zag. | The coyotes swallow the sounds of the forest | overtake it like frat boys pick off freshman girls. Once a star of her class | now a chime in the distance.

Pall

Fog layers landscape like tracing paper. This thaw is loud and persistent — the drum of its melt hollows the snow. New England winters linger too long. A rafter of wild turkeys in the woods yelp, cackle, purr. The clatter mutes the songbirds. Forsythia canes hint mason jar flowers, and the cardinals stay in—another missed opportunity. Let me protect you. Stand still as I wrap you in string lights.

Winter; pencil

sketch veil

……………in snow

Suzanne Frischkorn is a Cuban-American poet. Her most recent poetry collection, Fixed Star, is forthcoming from JackLeg Press (September, 2022). She is the recipient of the Aldrich Poetry Award for her chapbook Spring Tide, selected by Mary Oliver, an Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Writer’s Center for her book Lit Windowpane, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. She is an Editor for $ – Poetry is Currency and serves on the Terrain.org Editorial Board.

7 March 2022