Two Poems by Julia Caroline Knowlton

Poems without Metaphors

Nests with no birds.
Tracks with no train.

Blood without red,
blood without blue.

Cupboards with no food.
Mouth without a tongue.

Lovers scorned.
Empty envelopes.

Orphans.

*

Backyard Lyric

Sunlit, I sit cradling
my hardcover book
with its scents

of wood and ink.
I doze and do not think.
A breeze sends

last year’s dry yellow
magnolia leaves eddying
down the driveway—

gold flashes clatter
and add more light
to indigo sky.

Nearby, a cardinal
(unseen) weds its red
purpose to deepening green.

*

Julia Caroline Knowlton teaches French and Creative Writing at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, where she is the Adeline A. Loridans Professor of French. Recognition for her poetry includes an Academy of American Poets College Prize and a 2018 Georgia Author of the Year Award. She is the author of five books. Kelsay Books will publish her first book of children’s poetry, A to Z Poems for the Very Young, in 2024.