Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jennifer Tonge received an MFA from
the University of Utah. Tonge’s poetry has been anthologized
in Rising
Phoenix (2004)
andRavishing
DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English (2000).
Her poems have appeared in numerous journals,
includingQuarterly
West, Poetry, Ploughshares, New England Review, and Bellingham
Review.
The recipient of fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for
Creative Writing, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the MacDowell
Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Ucross
Foundation, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Tonge has
taught creative writing at the universities of Utah, Wisconsin, and
Texas as well as at Butler University. She has served as poetry
editor of Quarterly
West,
as president of Writers@Work, on the board of City Art, and as
associate editor at Dawn Marano and Associates.
Peach
BY JENNIFER
TONGE
Come
here’s
a peach he
said
and
held it out just far
enough to reach
beyond his lap
and
off-
ered
me
a room the
one
room
left he said in all
of Thessaloniki
that night
packed
with
traders
The peach was
lush
I
hadn’t slept for days
it was like
velvet lips a lamp
he
smiled
patted
the bed for
me
I
knew it was in fact
the only room the
only bed
The
peach
trembled
and he said
Come
nodding
to make me
agree I wanted
the peach and
the
bed
he
said
to take it
see
how
nice it was and I
thought how I
could take it ginger-
ly
my
finger-
tips only
touch-
ing
only it Not in
or out I stayed
in the doorway
watching
a
fly
He stroked the
peach
and
asked where I was from
I said the States
he smiled and asked
how
long
I’d
stay
The fly had
found
the
peach I said I’d leave
for Turkey in the
morning I
wanted
so
much
to sleep and
on
a
bed I thought of all
the ways to say
that word
and
that
they
must
have
gradient
meanings
He asked me did
I want the peach
and I said sure
and
took
it
from
his hand He
asked
then
if I’d take the room
It costs too much
I said and turned
to
go
He
said
to stay a
while
and
we could talk The sun
was going down I
said no thanks
I’d
head
out
on
the late train
but
could
I still have the peach
and what else
could he say to that
but
yes
Jennifer Tonge, “Peach” from Poetry (February
1999). Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Source: Poetry (February
1999).
【38岁自画像】
Self-Portrait at 38
BY JENNIFER
TONGE
Hair still
Titian,
but Botticelli's
grip has loosened—
not now
Rubenesque,
and probably
never;
Ingres
approaches,
but Courbet might
capture me.
Could I be
surreal?
It seems almost
likely—
bells in my
ears
and fortresses
under;
cones have been
set on my eyes.
My spring is
gone
and summer's upon
me,
rude in its
ripening.
I'm espaliered,
strung wide and
tied,
pinioned, and
thus can I fly.
Source: Poetry (May
2005).
————————————————————
Aperture
BY JENNIFER
TONGE
Open the window
and you want to fly out,
though you never
actually do—
I think I see
you, still there on the ledge,
where I've left
you.
How pulled-awake
and flung
can one life
be?
Again I thought,
It will end.
Again I promised
and clung.
I learned there
that
to cling was in
my nature.
I think I see
you, though you flash
quickly through
the shutter.
I think I hear
you, though I sleep.
Remember this as
a bolero,
a finite
flaring—
both the tulip
tree
burning in full
bloom
and the weeping
silver birch.
Source: Poetry (May
2005).
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