Light, which I dreamt was a decoder
of everything, fallsuneven in piles on snowdrifts.
A final loose lasso of geese flies:
south, southeast.Someone sleeps in the next room,
his breath curt stutters.Inside I look at a book of mosaics:
shattered bones recomposed.
The abbreviated glass resolvesinto horses,
an evening lake.It is so pleasurable to recognize strangers
—the brain likes this little glory,
moment to crow over.Lately I recognize myself more and more
like an explanation stepping outfrom the woodwork of fact.
I am special and irrevocable,
under the skin of skin of stone.Whoever is in the next room stirs and creaks
in sleep. The sound of his motion rearranges me.
Nearly
Amy Meng
Feature Date
- July 24, 2018
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Copyright © 2018 by Amy Meng
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission
Winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize
“The power of this unexpected, exhilarating first book derives from a profound commitment to the work of anatomizing love, to looking bravely into the hopes and self-deceptions, the wishes, concessions and complicities that accompany love and marriage. Her taut and arresting images, her coupling of the raw and the elegant, serve a vision as energizing as it is unnerving, and Bridled is a terrific debut.”
—Mark Doty
“These are poems of such sensual pleasure and such stark devastation… These are poems where love is real and symphonic and then entirely gone. How do we recover from that? Amy Meng shows us. She shows us every part of the journey with such compassion and deep honesty.”
—Gabrielle Calvocoressi
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