"I don’t think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them." — Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago When I’m about …
Leaving the Mulino 2006
A poem about leaving my childhood home, inspired by Kevin Goodan's (to crave what the light does crave). > to crave what the light does crave to shelter, to flee > To grasp October breath between chipped lips and know each molecule I taste to stamp the squares of a rubber sole into hoof-trod earth, …
North Carolina Locals Call it Rufton
I. Rain was an event, breaking through our compound, working the amaranth brick buildings to auburn, raspberry garlands in grass hair — dyed blue with Rutherfordton’s Carolina music. No swimming in a heat storm. We only balance on the window frame, listen to the clouds groan over air conditioning. II. I want friction in this …
Foxhole Psalm
Stop pretending and get down here. They said before I came that you would sleep in a cot next to mine tie my shoelaces tuck in the sheets whisper Billy Joel to drown out the Beretta’s. That you didn’t just sit on a seven-headed lion occasionally rocking your foot back flattening 23,000 people with …
What Consolation
How did the cake taste? Be done now with these jewels, macaroons, waltzing tunes. There is no more consolation in a rose garden. It never belonged to you, nor that head of yours. Famous hair gathering in sheets and sheets: silver glue sticking to your neck. Slice. > You made it too easy for them. …
Ceciley Pund 