Forms of Matter
by Julie Gard
The desk sits solidly, abundant with drawers and looped brass handles. It provides a landing place, a sitting place, a writing place, though she questions how long to sit there and what she will say. Any form of production exhausts her. She wants to rest, to be. What is the purpose of words arranged at a desk, on a real or virtual page? How will they ever compare to the riot of spring outside the window? She imagines a transformation, the desk becoming soil. The walls turning to water. Her body a wave, not an asking. Her mind letting go of thoughts of importance, and everything centered at heart, lung and belly. No sophistry, just spinach. No piety, just pumpkin seed. Fear turned into flax, apprehension into almond milk, greed into Greek yogurt. She questions the desk and writes from the floor, after all these years. Turns writing into watermelon, sweet lycopene on the tongue.
Julie Gard’s prose poetry collections include I Think I Know You (FutureCycle Press), Home Studies (New Rivers Press), Scrap: On Louise Nevelson (Ravenna Press), and two chapbooks. Her poems, stories and essays have appeared in Gertrude, Clackamas Literary Review, Blackbox Manifold, and other journals and anthologies. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota and teaches writing at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. You can find her online at www.juliegard.com.