Pascale Petit: Black Jaguar with Quai Saint-Bernard
If I hold my breath, half-close my eyes
and listen hard — there at the tongue’s root,
in the voicebox of night, I might hear
the almost-vanished. He’s summoning his prey…
Pascale Petit: The Moor Horses
And isn’t your blood free as a feral pony, coursing
through the uplands of your body?
Pascale Petit: Roebuck
Tell me there is a meadow, afterwards,
that the roebuck will come
to the top of my garden
Pascale Petit: Salt Bride
How long has Earth floated in her salt dress?
When did her bridal gown crystallise,
weighing her down like an anchor
inside a dead sea?
Pascale Petit: Hummer
The suitcase I found
on the shelf above his bed, with its jars
of mummified occupants, how I unwrapped
the photo curled around each hummingbird couple
like a sarcophagus
Pascale Petit: A Mother Sings
I will rebirth her on banks of the river of life.
Only I have to wade through the river of thorns
while she sleeps.
I am her country and her lagoon.
Pascale Petit: I asked if I could leave the earth
There was a word for what was wrong with me
but no word for the troubles on earth.
