Two Poems by Alyse Knorr

There is No Place for Grief in a House that Serves the Muse

Bike made of trees,
water made of bike.

Deep in the sunblink
you invite me, pull

remnants from the creek
where you drowned

a pinto rocking horse.
Where are the trees?

In the narrative. With
pocket rocks for ballast.

Upstream a landscape
missing hands and face.

I cannot see the forest.
I cannot see the lake.

Only your imprint,
love, interned in fog.  

And on the bank a deer
turning into stone.

Ekphrasis with Sappho

Sky is water, water sky—
anchored to shadow,
buoyed in gray. My spine

curves to cup the gloom,
routing air, a tower
in itself. Painter, hang me

on your wall—
surely the stone will
ripple. Surely the road

will break. Flood
floats on water, on
my own sick hands.  

In an age unlike our
own, you burn me. You
crack my ribs and dive.

Alyse Knorr is an assistant professor of English at Regis University and editor of Switchback Books. She is the author of the poetry collections Mega-City Redux (Green Mountains Review 2017), Copper Mother (Switchback Books 2016), and Annotated Glass (Furniture Press Books 2013), as well as the non-fiction book Super Mario Bros. 3 (Boss Fight Books 2016).