BURNING HOUSE PRESS

by Amee Nassrene Broumand

I invited poet and artist stephanie roberts — who has poems on Burning House Press and in The Arsonist Magazine — to trade lines of poetry with me. I’d never collaborated with another poet before, so the experience was something of a leap into the unknown. We began emailing poem shreds back and forth. The days flowed by, as did the weeks; the lines formed and shifted. Soon, a poem emerged —

(α)  ANB:

Lacewings quake in the crepitation of thistles

& reeds. Crickets creak wintled heartbeats dry.

(β)  stephanie roberts:

It would have been perfect, the river remapped boundary;

the embryonic recreates in its image.

(γ)  ANB:

Eggs nestle in the dunes, sea-hearted & yearning. Beyond

the delta, a beryl moon traces her map, Byronic heats

abandoned.

(δ)  stephanie roberts:

Amid a quiver of segmented leg and rush the climber seeks

foothold in a night that keeps shifting in flavour.

(ε)  ANB:

Silk ripples forth upon the midsummer hillside. Above,

an ichthyosaur leaps free from bands of mottled stone.

(ζ)  stephanie roberts:

Rests whistles as a pellet under a dove’s breath. Sedimentary,

binding and unbound. Yet course change wans irrepressible

and shudder wells an important resource for the desperate.

A Conversation

— (γ) (β) (α) (δ) (ε) (ζ) —   

Eggs nestle in the dunes, sea-hearted & yearning. Beyond

the delta, a beryl moon traces her map, Byronic heats abandoned.

It would have been perfect, the river remapped boundary;

the embryonic recreates in its image.

Lacewings quake in the crepitation of thistles & reeds.

Crickets creak wintled heartbeats dry.

Amid a quiver of segmented leg and rush the climber seeks

foothold in a night that keeps shifting in flavour.

Silk ripples forth upon the midsummer hillside. Above,

an ichthyosaur leaps free from bands of mottled stone.

Rests whistles as a pellet under a dove’s breath. Sedimentary,

binding and unbound. Yet course change wans irrepressible—

shudders well, an important resource for the desperate.

— stephanie roberts & Amee Nassrene Broumand

This year, stephanie roberts has work featured or forthcoming in almost two dozen journals including The Stockholm Review of Literature, Reunion: The Dallas Review, The Arsonist Magazine, Shooter Literary Magazine, The Acentos Review, Room, Rat’s Ass Review and Writers Resist. She lives in a wee town, just outside of Montréal, and counts among her strengths passionate curiosity and good humour. Twitter @ringtales.

Amee Nassrene Broumand is an Iranian-American poet. Her work can be found in Word Riot, Sundog Lit, A-Minor Magazine, Rivet, Modern Haiku, & elsewhere. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon & blogs for Burning House Press. Follow her on Twitter.