C.D. Wright
If one stood perfectly still. Even in the withering hours
of then. Hair down to here. Being alive and quiet.
One could forget oneself. Forget what one didnt even recognize.
How mad it felt. Subliminally. One could pick out goldfinches
and mourning cloaks among the dying stalks of cosmos
and across the ditch of grey wastewater they used to irrigate
the burial ground, a young man in a late-flowering tree
taking our photograph.
C.D.Wright lives outside of Providence. She has published eleven collections of
poetry, most recently Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil, Steal Away:
Selected and New Poems, and One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana, with
photographer Deborah Luster. She teaches at Brown University.