Chunnel    Channel
When I was a girl     no longer a girl
I flew on a train     under the sea
The inside is black     ( before the pick axe
Consider ) emeralds     pecans   blood loosed
from its tight drum     a comely stranger sat
beside me  on the train     The mind turns
on an ocean    a toy    boat caught
in a faucet    I was afraid    to descend
afraid of the all     upon a tunnel
meant     to steal us to the other     side He
smiled He    buttressed   an elegant English
against my     rattletrap French   I forgot how
close the dark     and fast     Oh how easily
one fear    may be replaced   by one
of its kin     then   I was afraid   to ascend
—
Jennifer Sperry Steinorth is a poet, educator, collaborative artist, and licensed builder. Her poetry has appeared recently in Alaska Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Colorado Review, The Journal, jubilat, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, Quarterly West and elsewhere. A chapbook, Forking the Swift, was published in 2010. In 2017 she was the Writers@Work Poetry Fellow selected by Tarfia Faizullah. She lives in Traverse City, Michigan, and teaches at The Leelanau School and at Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Steinorth’s poem “Commute” appeared in the Winter & Spring 2017 issue of Poetry Northwest.