Jennifer Mahoney

After praying


I appear like the barely heard rumble
muffled in the thundersnow,
and I come to resolve
like the restful snow that is landing.
I often hear you at night. Things you tell me
are usually only told when its dark.
I am soon building a snow-house in
the heavy, rising
winter of you.

 

 

 

 

Snow upon Snow

one dried-up raisin of an eye is frozen
in snow. last night, the one lost
must’ve fell like pieces of his sugar
smile. twigs spread stout, against the wind,
without hands to catch the crystals. yet, some sit
on his orange nose while the winds brush on
more. at night the moonlight checks
upon him, sometimes for an hour or five
minutes, sometimes not at all. and the dust like
whiteness from up high settles and settles,
then one day rises in the air an inch above his head,
and the snowman, disremembered just a little while,
is not solitary, is within.

 

 

 

 

Unripe

I want a bite of the unripe pomegranate
that fell upon the wind-withered rose garden,
this fruit that could grow to be that same red-wine,
to taste the sourness of ripe lemon
before the storm rolls this fruit away,
just like the petals that break off the roses.

 

 

 

 

Jennifer Mahoney is a Filipino writer and assistant teacher in Houston. She is also an MFA graduate at Antioch University where she studied poetry and served as editor for the Lunch Ticket Journal. She has an upcoming poem in TheMachinery.