Nicole Migneault

KNOTS


You’re inside me the way of sheep 
flesh in wool who congregate 

to test the shocking fence. Witness 
me cleanly, strange 

in my buttons 
downhill from Beekeeper 

Honeycomb:
the sweet in their mouths 

is mint. Wooden stool scrapes a 
gesture I wear meant for backroad 

abbey creeps in goth clubs. Homeward 
between the clutter 

of tractor and shoulder 
a pine splits 

and billows her frock: a shade
below gray—cream. To kneel 

at the stool, taste the ground 
with one’s knees 

and live 
overheard, the live voice 

overhead, how you round 
a vowel, your childhood swing 

evening curls an absinthe sort
of stare, coy ring 

ring of church from my post 
shears devour the flock 

I take a sickle 
shape lying down


ETHER DOME 


in perfect softness, voices carry 
through basement membrane 

excess gains momentum—sculptor calling 

a hot water bottle on legs a mother relation made of glass, 
pollen-frisked 

heavy with dew 
heads erect an asymmetry what wishes 

to withstand passes, the violent 
drifts tend to themselves 

find the violet within 
a pupil vanishing


FETISH 


Teak and steel produce 
an amber mood 
expanding baby 
another masterpiece 
of the month in broad 
divinity 
a clover 
you pluck 
when you want 
an ordinance, not a flower 
stem over a bruisy 
cushion that serves 
as fetish softens, adorns 
ritual, worry 
dolls at the Albuquerque 
airport Luna tries 
to eat, her muzzle 
jabs at the box 
mid-sky turns 
forget-me-not thigh 
under velvet 
a hundred pins



Nicole Migneault is a poet and nonfiction writer from New Hampshire. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.