Colorado Springs poet Janet Kenning is a graduate of the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop. Vintage Colorado Poetry is featuring two of her poems, old / new: "Estrella Mountains," published 1992, and "Junkyard," previously unpublished.

Vintage Colorado Poetry Poem of the Week August 2, 2004

Arizona

Estrella Mountains I knock over the bottle of wine. It spills On my feet, cold, leaving a purple stain. He holds a gun above the sign, "Private Land." He tries to see what's between my thighs. I don't move. What are you doing? Screwing out here? I want to be inside the dirt and trees. Across the valley, my orange car shines In the Saturday sun. The highway Cuts a line through the mountains. He walks away from us. I wipe the wine from my feet. You pick up the bottle and blanket. The drumming of cactus is the only sound.                              --Janet Kenning Originally published Ploughshares, Spring 1992. Copyright (c) 1992, Janet Kenning. Used with the author's permission.

I-25

Junkyard Dented in, riding on the back of a flatbed truck Like the carcass of a whale, the wings buckled down behind it, Blackened and tragic, This morning on the Interstate, a small plane Passed me in the next lane. The pilot could've looked at me, At my car, his eyes in terror, knowing no way To stop the wing from dipping down, touching, Just slightly the asphalt.  An exit, left Behind certain sadness and loss. So I drove on, more slowly than before, To work, to the monotony of everyday living, And arriving there, could think of nothing but flying.                                            --Janet Kenning Copyright (c) 2004 by Janet Kenning.

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