Chunnel     Channel

When I was a girl         no longer a girl
I flew on a train        under the sea
The inside is black        ( before the pick axe
Consider ) emeralds        pecans     blood loosed
from its tight drum        a comely stranger sat
beside me  on the train        The mind turns
on an ocean      a toy      boat caught
in a faucet       I was afraid     to descend
afraid of the all        upon a tunnel
meant        to steal us to the other        side He
smiled He       buttressed     an elegant English
against my        rattletrap French     I forgot how
close the dark        and fast        Oh how easily
one fear       may be replaced     by one
of its kin        then     I was afraid     to ascend

—

Jennifer Sperry Steinorth is a poet, educator, collaborative artist, and licensed builder. Her poetry has appeared recently in Alaska Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Colorado Review, The Journal, jubilat, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, Quarterly West and elsewhere. A chapbook, Forking the Swift, was published in 2010. In 2017 she was the Writers@Work Poetry Fellow selected by Tarfia Faizullah. She lives in Traverse City, Michigan, and teaches at The Leelanau School and at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Steinorth’s poem “Commute” appeared in the Winter & Spring 2017 issue of Poetry Northwest.