Heron / Girlfriend

Author: Jen Tynes

Publisher: Coconut Books (2008)

"Everything is hot when taken / out of the body and into town." If maps could have weather, I'd say: here's a map of that journey, from the body into town and back. If a map could have sound-regional dialect sung by a shape-shifter "real buddy-buddy with the multiple / inlets." The Bo Diddley epigraph sets the tone, but Heron/Girlfriend is a woman's song. "Everyone looks / into my hollow and hollers / their own names. / I give holy hell / back in pieces." It's hot.

—Kate Greenstreet