Poems by Jennifer Handy
Tracks and Traces
the bear is always a bear
the bear is also not-bear
Ursa minor assumes Ursa major
the great is part of the small
there is a path through the snow in the Arctic
there is a mark on the snow in the Arctic
the bear that made them is always-already absent,
the paw having been always-already lifted
at some other time in the past
the tracks are the sign of the bear
the tracks are the proof of the bear
the tracks are the absence of bear
in the text, there are always the traces
in the snow, there are also the traces
evidence of the transcendental signified,
a transcendental bear
B.E.A.R.
Throughout the Arctic
throughout Alaska
Oedibear transverses land and ice and sea
to piece together an estate,
obsessed with inheritance, with a legacy, with truth,
with something longer lasting than the precarious polar icecaps
She crosses the Arctic Circle
at a northern latitude approximately 66°
where on trash bins,
abandoned shipping containers,
even written out across the snowy tundra,
she finds an ever-present icon:
the outline of a ship marked B.E.A.R.
a ship weighed down by a heavy anchor
She watches a performance of The Seafarer’s Tragedy,
the famous Jacobean revenge play
that inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A line in the play is wrong
The theater troop is called The Screaming Salmon
Everywhere she visits,
from volcanoes to glacial ice
she uncovers strange clues, scanty evidence,
pointing to an elaborate conspiracy,
something about a ship that carried secret cargo
to the far ends of the earth
as well as a certain albatross
improbably said to have lived and died
in the opposite hemisphere
and somehow a post-punk band, the Nanooks
Next up, Lot 66,
an antique steamer trunk covered with travel stickers,
valuable
vintage
It’s not clear who’s going to bid
Jennifer Handy explores sexuality, psychological trauma, mental illness, severed family relationships, and environmental issues through poetry. She is the author of California Burning. Her poetry has been published in Chalkdust, The Closed Eye Open, CommuterLit, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Loud Coffee Press, The Rising Phoenix Review, Tangled Locks Journal, and Wild Roof Journal.
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