Jessica Fjeld

P

Poem on a National Holiday

How is it satisfied
I asked clapping my hands violently

and waving
in fear that I would miss the parade

I might have lost my sight
without noticing

Gone on imagining
I saw the same linked-up rooms I moved through

Or some cool gray space
where a silence could be made

I wanted a little animal
to climb inside it cleanly

I was asking to be left alone
but in answer the sun shone brighter

Political Theory

In a famous painting of a founding father
and the back end of a horse

it’ s the horse butt that’ s properly lit
groomed out smooth an immortal peach

Who can say what it means about revolution
that the horse’ s tail emerges as though it had no bones in it

no chunky mechanics of the living
And the horse is not well muscled

but has been living in the rich grass
swollen like a birthday balloon