New Poetry by Patti Jeane Pangborn

It was our great delight to publish Patti Jeane Pangborn‘s evocative poem ‘The Safest Place in a Trailer During a Tornado Is the Bathtub‘ in Issue 26, Spring 2020. With language and imagery that float and crack and rise, she nimbly explores the hidden spaces of family life.

Patti Jeane has kindly gifted us with another of her beautiful pieces, and we are honoured to share it with you here.

Grandmother Vine

Leaves or fairy wings
heart-shaped, curved
shoulders are warm
even in shade
the thick vein
her spine.
A white aura
frames each leaf.
I’m certain something
more could grow here
where leaf connects
to vine
brown tendrils shrink
but newer, greener
ones reach out
for sun maybe or soil.
Each leaf smells sweet
and some are
beginning to decay
spots of brown
eating away the thick
wall of her back.
My last memories
of my grandmother
are of food
on the corner
of her mouth
instead of lipstick.
She rocked a baby
doll to sleep at night.
I listen to the crackle
of each leaf
against my ear
hearing her voice
over the phone lines.

For more wonderful poetry by Patti Jeane, be sure to tune in to our Friday live reading this week!

Patti Jeane Pangborn holds a PhD in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in OCCULUM, Pulp Literature, NightBlock, and the Columbia Poetry Review. Patti’s chapbook Adrift (Space Cowboy Books) features a lonely astronaut who pines for Earth. Her dissertation examines the occult poetics of WB Yeats, Jack Spicer, and CAConrad. Her poetry explores the roles of ritual, memory, and technology in her speaker’s search for new spiritual experiences. She will be joining the faculty at the La Lumiere School in the fall as an Upper School English teacher.