2 poems Kerri Sonnenberg

Between Applause

your breath went somewhere

out of earshot

a sidecar in the roars of stadia

a scientist posits it was

captured by a white oak

and sunk

the land will hold its breath

for you a form a defiance

when entering an empty room

At the Outskirts

First home at the stump of a dead end

made by the tristate tollway

where in winter the snowplow pushed a city

grid of snow.

Where the lilac taller than the house

became my fragrant parlour, the company real

and imagined I received within its globe.

Where the sumac hung me out

over the chain link fence to pump my forearm

at truckers to honk their horns

and my being blasted with reward.

An only child talking to the dog,

only girl of all boys on the block

meant the cherry tree, being eaten from within,

would give each branch to become a sword.

Something about the traffic of xylem

and phloem echoed the outbound

commuters slowing for the toll.

Silence, a downbeat.

The night still strums

its tyres over rumble strips

making bullfrogs the backing

chorus of the dream.

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Kerri Sonnenberg is author of the poetry collection The Mudra (Litmus Press). Recent work appears in the journals Second Factory, Ambient Receiver and Banshee. She lives in Cork, Ireland.