Ori Fienberg
Ori Fienberg’s poetry is forthcoming this year in Cimarron Review, The Dallas Review, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, and Superstition Review. Ori is the author of the chapbooks Old Habits, New Markets, available from elsewhere press, and Interim Assistant Dean of Having a Rich Inner Life from Ghost City Press. A collection of prose poems, Where Babies Come From, is forthcoming this fall 2024 from Cornerstone Press. Ori teaches poetry for Northeastern University.
Tumble Dry
Who knew VOCs were potent bee
pheromones, beguiling a swarm
of nectar seekers who must quell
their desires with Arm & Hammer
syrup clinging to the metal stamen
of the washing machine’s basket?
So much can change in the midst
of a spin cycle: coneflower coronas
have lost their jewels; firm pressure
with your barefoot (if you can bear
the heat) can slowly spread asphalt,
or imbed your own personal fossils
in ten-to-twenty-year bitumen time
capsules of road surfaces; ice cream
ends up injection molded into cones,
the excess falling to a roasting pan
sidewalk; on the lake lasers tip, turn
turtle, then lift from the green water
as pilots casually lever diagonally
from daggerboards. It’s much harder
to coax bees out from a basement
by providing gentle wind for phlox,
purple sage, and lilies gifting greasy
orange stains, another load to wash.
Erratics are Erotic
How many fear salesman does any
family need? We keep buying since
it's the only supply chain that hasn't
suffered, the only commodity that's
always beyond powers of inflation,
or liters of gas, because it's a public
good, a free ride, a destination time
share without any takers to a stop:
mind the gap, careful the crevasse,
gaze before stepping over excesses
of air. It's back to normal on trains,
and it's a one-way trip on all lines, all
colors merging into the light shining
through discarded masks. All the sad
children get special magics, the rest
get allium blossoms or bolted chives.
Sounds Like Sushi Grade On Sale
The days of savage calves have passed
and these joists are only sort of sistered,
one little known ligament, and too many
mistakes. I wanted to go from potato to
meat in six weeks, but I've hit the wall in
the season, of flagrant terniflora, and we
can't quit quietly collecting carrots from
rabbits crossing yards: a thousand final
flares of fragrance wrapped around our
fences can't stop frost, and yet ice caps
seem to melt wherever I go. Where can I
find a perfect shower head mode? Rain
slows the tree sap in our veins, ash turns
yellow, and runners slip on summer cash.