1. You Are the Thorns, the Thread, the Sharp-shinned Hawk.<\/strong><\/p>\n Wild plum thickets form a dense tangle 2. Pepper Grinders Like Hong Kong Buildings<\/strong><\/p>\n Open the pantry cabinet, and see, 3. From a Train<\/strong><\/p>\n This one has a crank. It’s like a music box, but the thing <\/p>\n Spring nights are ponderous with sounds _________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n SOPHIE SUMMERTOWN GRIMES has lived and traveled in China as an Oberlin Shansi Fellow, and again as a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Boston University, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI<\/em>, 491 Magazine<\/em>, CRATE<\/em>, and Spoon River Poetry Review<\/em>. Second runner-up for the 2011 New Letters Prize for Poetry, she lives in Chicago, where she is completing her first book of poems, and learning how to be a tour guide.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THREE DIORAMAS OF LANDSCAPES WITH YOUR FACE ALWAYS IN THE WAY 1. You Are the Thorns, the Thread, the Sharp-shinned Hawk. Wild plum thickets form a dense tangle [criss crossed string in a shoebox] of small, stiff branches. They also possess thorns [silver pushpins] and are favorite trestles for perching birds [buttons and pearls] frost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3755,"featured_media":0,"parent":9,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/335\/revisions\/493"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n[criss crossed string in a shoebox]
\nof small, stiff branches. They also possess thorns
\n[silver pushpins]
\nand are favorite trestles for perching
\nbirds
\n[buttons and pearls]
\nfrost is \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0[for snow, sprinkle sugar]
\nsalt on tangled wings.<\/p>\n
\nthe inside is mirrored. There is a row,
\nno thousands, of wooden pepper grinders.
\nPepper grinders! Have you ever seen
\nanything so beautiful? What’s inside
\nthe pepper grinders? Pepper corns
\n(the color of your eyes) in nests
\nof hair that fit like foil in the fish’s eye,
\nlike shine on skyscrapers.You reach
\nfor one and then your hands: so many
\nhands, like monsters, like millions
\nof salmon in cold water, cutting upstream.<\/p>\n
\nthat moves
\nis painted palms and an occasional cottage.
\nThe gumball rolling between the aisles is a coconut, the flies
\npinned on the paper are the birds. There’s your
\ninstant noodles, your mint-
\nbox suitcase.
\nThe rising sun dyed red on a white background with islands is your heart, or\u00a0the tissue
\npressed against a child’s bloody nose while the bread-box train
\nclimbs up
\ninto the mountains.<\/p>\nFLOURISHING RAINBOW APARTMENT COMPLEX<\/h1>\n
\nof fornicating cats and that woman on the top floor
\nwho the whole place knows is faking
\nincluding the trash family, always eating
\nfrom steaming tins in the cold evenings. The trashwoman, who fights
\nwith the trashman when he drinks, takes the extra bed and clothes
\nI don’t want and always says, hello<\/em>, and makes her kids say it too.
\nWhat will you do with the bed? <\/em>I ask. The kids can sleep on it. <\/em>
\nThey echo in the stairwells where a sign says, Stop Scuffing Up The Walls!<\/em>
\nThe key broke once and a locksmith came
\nand took the door apart and once a man delivered an airplane ticket
\nI bought online. Geez! It took me so long to find you!<\/em>
\nHe said he had to ask where the foreigner<\/em> lived
\nall down Development Street.
\nOnce, I opened a high cabinet and a stuffed animal fell on me.
\nOnce there was a dazed cockroach in the kitchen
\nthat I apologized to before killing.
\nThere was pickled garlic, and eggs, always eggs.
\nThe irregular plink<\/em> in the very early morning
\nwas a woman breaking nuts outside, under the sink.
\nOnce some kids saw me through the window. Hello! <\/em>
\nHow are you<\/em>? they said, and, Good afternoon! <\/em>
\nWhat is your name<\/em>? I hid under the table
\nfor some reason. Bare-kneed on the floor.
\nHello! Hello?<\/em> Where are you from?<\/em>
\nthey yelled. You are a pig,<\/em>
\none ventured. Then, You are a stinking Peeegue<\/em>
\nI remember having a difficult time finding sturdy surfaces
\nto write on. I was often angry
\nbecause of how that table wobbled when I wrote
\nletters home. In the night, a huge cat stood
\nat my door. He was bald on his head and missing an eye. He did not want any help
\nfrom me. Sometimes I watched him through my peep-hole.
\nHis tail moved and he never tried to clean himself.<\/p>\n