Carolyn Guinzio
A Post On This Thread
I marked every kick in the book.
On the last day, we walked. Morels
new to the aboveground were still
malformed brains on their stems.
Mostly, the round mouths of deer
had appeared, breathed and then bitten,
beaten us there, leaving nothing
but a taunting stalk. The bittern
made a swallowing sound. Fear
and contentment meeting in its throat,
the quail made a queer feather-blanket
purr, but stayed outside the eye's reach.
We all know the old will settle their senses
on a plane beyond pain, but later.
Now, it was just beginning to change.
A towhee kept saying: The playground
is empty, but the swing still swings.
We were weaving over the field.
Wobbling vultures were waiting their turn,
and the shadows moved like swings.
Carolyn Guinzio's third book, Spoke & Dark, (Red Hen, 2012) was chosen by Alice Quinn as winner of the To The Lighthouse/A Room Of Her Own Prize.She is also the author of West Pullman, winner of the 2004 Bordighera Poetry Prize, and Quarry (Parlor Press, 2008).
Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, Blackbird, Colorado Review, New American Writing, Puerto Del Sol, and Smartish Pace, among other journals. She is the editor of a project called Yew: A Journal of Innovative Writing & Images By Women.
Return to September 2014 Edition
I marked every kick in the book.
On the last day, we walked. Morels
new to the aboveground were still
malformed brains on their stems.
Mostly, the round mouths of deer
had appeared, breathed and then bitten,
beaten us there, leaving nothing
but a taunting stalk. The bittern
made a swallowing sound. Fear
and contentment meeting in its throat,
the quail made a queer feather-blanket
purr, but stayed outside the eye's reach.
We all know the old will settle their senses
on a plane beyond pain, but later.
Now, it was just beginning to change.
A towhee kept saying: The playground
is empty, but the swing still swings.
We were weaving over the field.
Wobbling vultures were waiting their turn,
and the shadows moved like swings.
Carolyn Guinzio's third book, Spoke & Dark, (Red Hen, 2012) was chosen by Alice Quinn as winner of the To The Lighthouse/A Room Of Her Own Prize.She is also the author of West Pullman, winner of the 2004 Bordighera Poetry Prize, and Quarry (Parlor Press, 2008).
Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, Blackbird, Colorado Review, New American Writing, Puerto Del Sol, and Smartish Pace, among other journals. She is the editor of a project called Yew: A Journal of Innovative Writing & Images By Women.
Return to September 2014 Edition