Collaboration, by Jennifer Met

Dark Spring, New Yorker cover illustration, by Christoph Niemann (USA). 2011. Click image for artist website.

Collaboration     
for Christoph Niemann and Françoise Mouly

When I was young I saw a photograph 
             of a fence after an earthquake 
where its man-made border was interrupted 
             as one half was heaved forward and 
one half was pulled back leaving a large gap 
             like a warped spring—a latch 
that can’t quite be forced close or like someone 
             painting a line down the right 
side of a large and invisible street fell 
             asleep and when they woke up 
they accidentally resumed their drawing 
             on the left side instead—the width 
of a street—a common ground—a public right
             of way owned and maintained 
by the city—now left unconnected and you 
             couldn’t see where the earth ground 
against itself sliding or where it rippled 
              like a blanket being shaken 
because there wasn’t a mark and wasn’t a rift--
              wasn’t a scar in the grass—and I 
                                       always associated this image with earthquakes so much
                                                     so that now the New Yorker’s cover
                                        illustration reminds me of an earthquake fissure
                                                     the leafless cherry branch like lightning
                                        slightly off-centre and striking upon the left-hand 
                                                     side of the page where trefoils blossom pink 
                                        and loose petals drift back and up and I think  
                                                     how the artist’s editor was right 
                                        to change the background colour of this dark
                                                     crack canyoning up the beautifully clean 
                                        white—too obvious—to a new version of a branch 
                                                      drawn black against black—unseen--

                             and the flowers float seemingly at random…
​
Jennifer Met

Jennifer Met lives in a small town in North Idaho. Recent work is published or forthcoming in Nimrod, Harpur Palate, Zone 3, Juked, Tinderbox, Rogue Agent, Sonic Boom, Gravel, Sleet Magazine, Weirderary, Bombay Gin, and Moon City Review, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, a finalist for Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and winner of the Jovanovich Award. Her chapbook Gallery Withheld is forthcoming from Glass Poetry Press.  See more at www.jennifermet.com.