Poetry: Close by Ashton Wesner
For “Close,” Wesner generates—with the smallest lines she could—the broad ambiguity we have toward our bodies, our parents, our thinking. So many powerful punches land between these two-three word lines; these sentence long stanzas fight above their weight.
Close
How little
is my good.
Worry worn,
an urchin
in the chest.
In my foot
my mother
cries, and
swells. A
rare form
that grows
inward and
not outward.
How little
is my bone.
On a table
in the yard
and rain in
the cold air.
In my body
my mother
closes her
mouth, and
does not
touch me.
An animal,
small and soft,
walks in
between.
How little
is my thought.
Golden and
sunken.
Ashton Wesner
Ashton Wesner is a caring femme and critical writer from the Pacific Northwest, currently living in Oakland. As a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, her research and teaching examines relationships between land, science, power, and resistance. She plays piano and writes poems.
