JoAnne McFarland

Intermezzo

In the cradle of night

desires come to us now unbidden

Do you hear what they say?

crawl through our blood until it is lawless

Every few seconds

winds collapse against the leaves

bodies remade with skin we don’t recognize

shake with a renegade power

Two in the morning

those who can no longer hold on fall to the ground

I study your face

the fulcrum of autumn

looking for who I was

entranced by your blackness

unable to call my own name

the distance from here to duty

Someone I will never know

captivated by her fragrance

howls

the gauze between seasons

wraps her daughter in shreds

caprice of blooming

death shows through anyway

harbor of pure light

How thin memory is

ripe music

Leaves suffocate the roots

love won’t be quieted

unable to make the same green

these are the lessons

unable to make enough shade

the coiled shadows of things

Full moon tonight

taste the moonlight

cars line the street

feel my pulse and all it is claiming

I tilt as Earth speeds

fingers sown into wetness

a tumbler near the edge of the table

debris of centuries

tectonic floors

planets we become

cold air glides into seeds

time presses down

entombing crystal vases

every wild territory

The mother’s lament

floats in a cup

wounds that don’t stop

oolong blossoms in a bowl

limbs torn from bodies as if they were bread

against a door light pours through

scarring the landscape

inexhaustible

as if we were wildflowers

each word a wisp

as if this were spring

dropped onto a blank page

and we were in love

severed with a machete

He cradles his organs

clutching at the berries

listening at the gate

probing the peaches

unprotected from flooding

ghosts strip us naked

fears line up like land mines

we dance on the ends of flames

every caress a truth and a lie

released from dust

the lust to be safe in a splintering world

thicken around words’ meanings

We sift through ashes

knowledge we have no map for

for pieces of the past

throbs to a keening

A stray bounds through the street

willing to fuck anything

desperate for any bone with meat

carved from a shoulder

Four in the morning

the moon has borne us the entire night

who has died

a bullet passes through his cheek

wrong place wrong time

as if life were a ribbon

right place wrong time

to be wrapped around the horizon

from Psalms of Innocence (Green Linden Press, 2026)

Also by JoAnne McFarland: from American Graphic
In the store: American Graphic, Psalms of Innocence

JoAnne McFarland is a multidisciplinary maker. The tenet that fuels her practice across multiple genres is her belief that violence and creativity are opposites. She is the Artistic Director of Artpoetica, a project space in Gowanus, Brooklyn that focuses on the intersection of literature and visual art. Her recent multimedia collections include American Graphic, winner of the 2024 Wishing Jewel Prize for Poetic Innovation from Green Linden Press and the 2023 Experimental Poetry Award from the Connecticut Poetry Society; A Domestic Lookbook and Pullman, published by Grid Books in 2024 and 2023 respectively; and Identifying the Body, published in 2018 by the Word Works. McFarland has artwork in the permanent collections of the Cooper/Hewitt Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Department of State, among many others. Beginning in 2019, McFarland has curated the Sally Project with fellow artist Sasha Chavchavadze. Sally is a community-centered project focused on using art to activate the public memory of women, like Sally Hemings, whose lives have been erased or marginalized. McFarland’s artwork is represented by Accola Griefen Fine Art. www.joannemcfarland.com