Circumnavigation by Dana Curtis


 
 
About the devastated warmth
of the porch light hunger, about
stars swallowed by the evening
cacophony, about the river I live
in and its shores instigated by
movement and fragrance, about
a story that says nothing, about
a church burning in the distance,
about these velvet ribbons found
under rocks, around broken
streetlights, about my mirror and
all our many lies, about the ships
sailing the bloodstream, about a room
closed for the season but secretly
inhabited by blind ghosts and empty
landscapes, about my love and
the death holding my hand,
about the diseases I refuse
to invite to the celebration, about
all the indications, about the truth
finally revealed, finally on its knees.
 
 
 
Dana Curtis’ third full-length collection of poetry, Wave Particle Duality, was recently published by blazeVOX Books. Her second collection, Camera Stellata, was published by CW Books, and her first book, The Body’s Response to Famine, won the Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in such publications as Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Elixir Press and lives in Denver Colorado.