Quondam

Rose Swartz

Quit it. Love quit.

Quick as a month or minute: silent as a father, the snow. Envelope,

quiver, point of entry: an in through the eyes, not the other warm way. Slow,

quiescent thief, manufacturer of memory: what do you run beside? A

qual unknown, tossed in the reeds. Once love was the horse that woke us. In the

quag next to the cliff men sleep next to empty bottles. Who dare

quash a thing like that? Hay breath and hooves, my

quisling. A lullaby of action before thought.

Queen Creek or Bumblebee Crown: from a distance each horse is the same. A

qualmy realization: up close, each horse is also the same. That unfinished song of

quicksand and trains. We sing here and pin our wishes to the same

quotidian margins. Grand Elk car, whistle and bell, a

quadrille or ballad stilting through February: it's

queer melody spiked with so many gin & tonics.

Quinine, frizzante, mooring, I always thought we were an empty

quandary. Our apartment, a wind machine, a big sock in the breeze—

quixotic before I knew you and won't that hymn come see me

question mark     question

mark     comma    no.

Rose Swartz currently lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan and teaches Composition and Literature at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan. Rose earned an MFA in poetry from Arizona State University in 2010, and also has a BA in English and a BFA in visual art from Western Michigan University. She's currently working on a photo-essay and creative nonfiction collection about travelling in Asia and working in Beijing, China. Her poetry has been published in Devil's Lake, The Golden Key, Front Porchv, The Kenyon Review Online, Sin Fronteras, Asylum Lake, and Carrier Pigeon.