Jennifer Nelson

De re metallica

Today I woke up haunted by the man
playing the US national anthem 
on the ancient bone flute 
in that Herzog film. This

is what I get for not having a past,
like a landscape painting in the early
sixteenth century. Everyone who sees me
wants to know where the humans are

and the answer is I’m a forest
with a few signs of habitation
and undirected danger like a smile.

Why can’t I be claimed
by something coherent but not evil?
I tell the ghost I don’t believe
a message can be universal. 

This exorcism fails. He sits on my bed 
watching my rivers pretend to be fountains.
We debug an app that beautifies 
the mines inside my mountains.

Jennifer Nelson is the author of four books of poetry, including the forthcoming On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies, winner of Fence’s Ottoline Prize, and most recently Harm Eden from Ugly Duckling Presse. Their poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Art Lit Lab Review, Fence, Here Magazine, Panda’s Friend, Spirit Duplicator, and elsewhere. They are also the author of two art historical monographs, including a biography of the artist Lucas Cranach published by Reaktion Press earlier this year. They teach art history at the University of Delaware and are a founding editor of the art histiography journal Selva.