j e n n    m a r i e    n u n e s

CONTINUOUS FAMILY OWNERSHIP

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CONTINUOUS FAMILY OWNERSHIP

CONTINUOUS FAMILY OWNERSHIP

The ocean receded. She drives us over the mountain in silence. We slide between trees. Carried
in anger by her own silence. Obtruding classical music and I know it's my fault.

Here where the moon opens the black valley with silver. Here where the trees close overhead.
From generation to generation. The windows vibrate with anger. I never know what's my fault.

The little lights on the dashboard flare and dim with her surge. Here where the trees close
overhead. I finger my silver rings. Not a tool — a conductor. Dear Mother.

Note the silence.

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The dark sweep and dizzying lift of night sky above the valley where black is the beginning of
space. In the daughter-box I hold shape. She turns the wheel. Now comes the long stretch

between trees. Out of silence, classical music. Out of silence all the things you can never take
back. Here where the headlights pick out tree trunks, the black lace of spruce. I imagine

a cave in the woods. A small fire, a pile of furs. Even daughters are handy. I know I can skin a
rabbit. I know how to fashion a trap.

next

CONTINUOUS FAMILY OWNERSHIP

It is hot inside the car. I sweat into the armpits of my new jacket. History pivots on the moment

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JENN MARIE NUNES is the author of numerous chapbooks, including JUNED, winner of the YesYes Books 2015 Vinyl 45s Chapbook Contest (forthcoming 2016), and the collaborative Hymn: An Ovulution (Bloof Books 2015). Her work appears in such journals as ACTION, YES!, Tupelo Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, smoking glue gun, and [PANK], and she is co-founding editor of TENDE RLOIN, an online gallery for poetry. Her first full-length collection, AND/OR, winner of the Switchback Books' Queer Voices Award, came out this past spring.

in issue thirteen

a l i c e   b l u e   t w e n t y - s e v e n

I S S N     1 5 5 9 - 6 5 6 7