Delaware Poetry Review–New Works from the Mid-Atlantic Region
The Delaware Poetry Review is an online journal founded by a team of writer-editors in 2007. DPR publishes talented poets from Delmarva and the Mid-Atlantic, as well as poets from across the country with ties to the region.
Snowy Egret: Cover image by Kevin Fleming, author of “Wild Delaware” & “The Heart of America” http://www.kevinfleming.com/
Founding editor Kim Roberts invited me to guest edit the Fall 2012 issue: new poems by Josiah Bancroft, Liz Dolan, Russell Susumu Endo, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Meredith Davies Hadaway, Amanda Newell, Abby Millager, Erin Murphy, Maggie Rowe, and Leona Sevick. Here’s a preview of two poems, and hope you enjoy the issue.
Bath Time
Turn me back into a fish.
It’s too late for reanimation,
for nerve ends and love tics.
My skin, soft, uncooked,
excited as wetted yeast,
as hungry, does soon remind me
that mine is the body
lightning made, just before
the waking, brainless monster
leapt to his iron feet and ran
for the village, already ablaze.
Quiet Pond Farm
—For my student, Emily
Driving to your farm
after your father’s funeral,
the fields half-frozen
beneath a cover of purple vetch,
I wish I could go back—
past the officers stammering
the news on your porch,
past the overturned car.
I would send him home
on a different route
to Quiet Pond Farm,
where one of your horses
is loose now, his silhouette
sepia beneath the willow tree.
He broke through the fence
while everyone was gone.
After catching him, I secure
the boards with baling twine—
a temporary fix. In this darkness,
it’s all that I can do.