Douglas Anthony Cooper
Art by Joan Nelson

Joan Nelson - Untitled, 2011.
Acrylic, oil, gouache, ink, spray paint, dry pigment on wood panel.
19 3/4 x 19 5/8 in (50.16 x 49.85 cm).
Courtesy of the artist and Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
The Sun Not Yet Swallowed
I am chained to my bed by the usual chains
A cup of cat’s breath, the beard of a maid
A terminal moraine.
These fix my feet; my wrists are restrained
By the massed anxiety of bears
And ceaseless the shuffling sound
Of parrotfish pacing the floor
My bed is a bitter nest
My bed has been made
With the skill and saliva
Of raptors
Of eagles and hawks and owls
And lesser but no less brutal birds
With nothing better to do.
Issue of the barren I am
The pride of eggless fowl
My pillows are all of the softest granite
Hewn from Canadian shield
My sheets undiluted cotton from only
The finest cottonmouth
And each liquid thread
In this thread count of thousands
A string of yellowish venom milked by
The Swissmost of milkmaids
This is the pitiless miracle
In which I lie nerveless
The bed of the woken body
Cradle of the conscious mind
Crater of civilization and
Container of who I am
Here with me is all that I have learned
This is the prison of morning

Douglas Anthony Cooper
Douglas Anthony Cooper is a Canadian writer and photographer living in Rome. His latest novel, The Strangler Fig, will be published by Black Spring Press in 2022.
Joan Nelson
Joan Nelson (b. 1958, California) lives and works in upstate New York. Her work has been exhibited widely at venues that include the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Guggenheim Museum, NY; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among many others. Nelson received her BFA from Washington University, St. Louis, MO.