Two Poems by Jennifer Militello

the lab

The trash out back is history’s clock.
It stops to rot. It ranks in acts.
Its reek is scattered.
Its stink is fat.

I map it when I walk.
Interiors small. All quiet, sleek.
Xed, I eek. Driving at the speed
of dark. No place to go
that is not raw.
All awe. Smokes smut.

It lacks a flourish.
It’s not anything that zeroes in or is born.

Linoleum catches at the doorway like a bruise.

Chapters rage and lord.

radar eve

The swollen lip means a kiss.
The swollen lip means a sting.

There is no tongue for the cumulus or nimbus.
They are deaf and dumb. They are mute like rain.

All the window-makers are done.
The glass has all gone home.

The paddocks all are empty.
The moon-scratch all is none.

The crossings have gone minor.
The pebbles have gone old.
When God is a horizon
and the devil is the sun,

the world is a twirl we cannot reach
and the small self whorls as none.
The cells are well, we live or die,
and in the earth stay cold.

Jennifer Militello is the author of the forthcoming hybrid collection Identifying the Pathogen (Tupelo Press, 2026), named a finalist for the FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, the memoir Knock Wood, winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize, and five collections of poetry, including, most recently, The Pact (Tupelo Press/Shearsman Books, 2021). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry, Poetry London, and The Poetry Review. She teaches in the MFA program at New England College and is the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire.