Trevor BurrowsBreaks are often when I try to retrieve a regular poetry-reading habit from wherever it escaped...
(Why does it so easily slip out of reach at times when we almost certainly need it most?)
But this morning I read 3 poems from the December issue of *Poetry* and all 3 were just brutal in their own ways and now I'm exhausted.
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Michelle Otero - Communion
Observations of a father's loss of speech and grounding after his stroke.
"He lost the words communion
santo
pecado
lamb He lost"
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Gina Franco - To Shelter Itself and, Sheltered, to Conceal Itself
Memories of a house fire (?), the fire itself working as a metaphor for trauma.
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Blas Falconer - The Wake
I won't try a pithy description here.
"sitting on the curb, I watched a procession
carry a white coffin which must have been
a child's -- that small. I lie down in the dark."