TAKE TWO: BLACK JACK / Branwell Brontë & His Drinking Mug
is it my carrot top or the pale sisters painted
yet myself removed turned into a sloe-eyed pillar
since I am not quite real crave gin and poppies
Black Jack for sleep sin-steeped set my bed afire
for I lust keen to peel off their gossamer collars
(blow-up) unhook denude taste cherries
and Black Jack hidden down there Anne in
a book-lined study a heathered heath for Emily
then for Charlotte my Charlotte castles in Angria
I the intruder am ill enslaved by the unreal
what I want to die standing up like my pillar
but even more (climax) true friend to Branwell
Brontë I want Black Jack mine theirs
and that sodding poppy sweet canker-rose of Lethe
• • •
Susan Terris’ most recent books are Take Two: Film Studies (Omnidawn Publishing, Fall 2017), Memos (Omnidawn Publishing), and Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk Press). She is the author of six books of poetry, sixteen chapbooks, three artist’s books, and one play. Journal publications include The Southern Review, Denver Quarterly, Georgia Review, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers from Field appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. A poem from Memos was in Best American Poetry 2015. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and is a poetry editor of Pedestal Magazine.
“Take Two: Black Jack” was previously published in Ghost Town.
