Trilogy on Janet Snell, by Cheryl Snell

The Light Fantastic, painting by Janet Snell (USA) 2018

The Light Fantastic 
​
Nevertheless, we made our home in a room lit by 
two candles. One flame glowed while the other 
flickered. Your light stared like an interrogation; it 
never let me sleep. Mine blinked and winked until 
the room closed its lids. Afterward, we watched the 
moon in the window thicken like skin. Why should 
we have feared the dark? We’d taken the bright 
​inside us.

Something Up with Which I Will Not Put by Janet Snell (USA) 2007

Something up with which I will not put

Outside seeped inside where my before had shut the 
door on your after. Now inside among, you turn the 
light down, and then out. Either I am dreaming or 
your words have learned to zig and zag around and 
about. Aside from that, they come aboard with the 
meanings all athwart. They lie about why your 
without is suddenly within again. Before they arise 
only to raze, I remember that across is but along, 
against is beside, and between so near it convinces 
me that I never wanted you behind, with me this far 
beyond.

Ring with Tossed Hat painting by Janet Snell (USA) 2019

Ring with Tossed Hat  

Think of a river dotted with lanterns, 
and I’ll watch from under this hat until I can no 
longer make out the yellow pinpricks that were so 
easy to discern before the dark descended, before I 
dropped to my knees, before I folded myself into 
myself, the sky above diagrammed with an exit of 
clouds flung in a confusion of three-cornered 
objects that would, could, and should blanket a 
sky under which the day had spoiled in the sun.

Cheryl Snell

Cheryl Snell is a poet and writer with collections from Finishing Line, Pudding House, and other publishers. She is also the author of Bombay Trilogy, and  she collaborated with her late sister Janet on many ekphrastic projects.