Juniper
by Dana Jaye Cadman
Here the night spreads across
the breast of day and yawns
one aching grey breath onto the river,
the ceiling swings low over
while the Parlor City hugs me drunk
between muse and rot. A juniper.
What forgives of us?
What of us can enter or be entered–
these ambitious limbs
want to know where each thing begins,
to touch even slightly the fullness,
grasp what is too large or disappearing.
Binghamton, your ripe sky—
The river once again is being rained on.
I cup my hands over it, holding
the weather up.
Dana Jaye Cadman is a writer and artist. Her work appears in Poem-A-Day, New England Review, PRISM, The Moth Magazine, Raleigh Review, The Glacier, and elsewhere. She is Assistant Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Pace University Pleasantville. danajaye.com