Jennifer Poteet

Jennifer Poteet lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey and works in Manhattan as a fundraiser for public television. Her poems have been published in various journals, including 2 RiverView, The Adirondack Review, Tryst, Poetry Niederngasse and Absinthe Literary Review, among others. She is a Pushcart prize nominee. She is also passionate about movies and Mexican folk art.

Mechanics Of The Sun

When the sun sets into the sea, it slips,
indifferent, under

standing ships, behind tenements, igloos
and the lengths of cornfields without effort.

We don't see the sweaty brawn of laddered, lunch-box men
who harness, muscle, prod with metal rods

and wrestle down the bleeding orb at night.
These are the same men who make it gleam.

They polish the sun with brutal hands.
In the first hours of day, their slog begins again to make it rise.

Pumps and levers steam.
They toil behind the team who yoke the moon.