Shanan Ballam
POEMS
The Waterfall
Thomas stood gaping
at the falls—to be that tall,
to be that glossy gush, to be
the white rush of sound, the colossal fall,
to be the thready edges spilling down
a dripping face of moss,
and he closed his eyes,
spread his arms like wings,
felt the freezing mist sting
his face like prickled stars,
felt the roar clog his ears,
and he became a mollusk
inside a shell,
body curled
against glossy lips,
his whole existence the raging
blast of ocean against his skin,
and the sound inside him
like resounding bells,
like the symphony loud, loud, loud,
violins and cellos, a cascade
of fingers across piano,
until every cell of his skin was sound,
and a taste of grass, of icy stones,
and the taste of glass when he ran
his tongue across the window pane,
and now the fragrance of snow,
to be fed by snow, to be fed
by a pure sapphire spring,
to be rushing home to the ocean,
gooseflesh rising on his arms,
his hair and skin pearled
in rainbow spray, he was a fish,
he was a snowflake, he was the river,
he was the fall, the gulp, the silver
water sinking, he was the reckless
shatter and shimmer,
deafened by his own voice singing.
This poem first appeared in Plume Poetry 9 and was selected by Utah Poet Laureate Paisley Rekdal to be the featured poem on April 2, 2021 for The Utah Poetry Festival. To see Shanan perform "The Waterfall," click here.
Reasons
You, who just to feel your falling, fell,
unlocked your eyes to splendid shame.
You who crave delicious hell
fell to feel the spark in every cell,
shock of knowing shimmers your brain.
You, who just to feel your falling fell
into silence. Aching tongue of bell
hungry to be wrung, to sound your name.
You who crave delicious hell
yearn for serpents, toxic tonics they sell,
their promise to feed, to satiate pain.
You, who just to feel your falling fell
into love, its incinerating spell,
its sad hiss of ashes after the flame.
You—you crave delicious hell;
the thrill of bitter bliss propels
you to part your lips, taste, relish blame.
You who crave delicious hell.
You, who just to feel your falling, fell.
This poem appears in Shanan's collection Pretty Marrow and was the May 2015 Bite-Sized Poem for Utah Division of Arts and Museums. To watch Shanan perform "Reasons," click here.
Both Sides of the Window
The story is a window, and light slides
its eyes through the glass. Little prickles
of time, the squeak of a finger, smudging
its oily print. Outside, the sky darkens
like a bruise. The blue fragrance of spring
snow. Red Riding Hood is on both sides
of the window. Outside, the sky hums
a golden light. The night will be unbearably
cold. If the story goes on forever, it will always
end. Wolf, ulfe, lupine, lupus: the slippery
animal of time. Wolf stretches long
and harmless in a patch of sun, then winds
himself in a cocoon of glass. He waits
for the right moment to shatter out and fly.
Wolf will always be waiting, the girl always
watching, maybe inside, maybe outside, in the sky.
Smudge of the seasons on windows,
smudge of fingerprints, halo of breath on glass.
Glass holds nothing but itself.
The window watches me; the seasons sprout
buds and wings as Wolf swirls over the hills.
This poem appears Shanan's collection in Inside the Animal: The Collected Red Riding Hood Poems and was first published in cream city review
