Featured Poet ~ Fall/Winter 2018
As a Missourian, my writing is often inspired by ancestors who rode out their their lives somewhere between the Mighty Mississip and Wide Missouri. In addition to writing creatively about my Midwestern roots, I teach vinyasa yoga, and I also direct the Stephens College Student Success Center, an academic resource and writing support hub for the College’s undergraduate and graduate students.
Cathe Dunn’s First Kiss
upon Her Death in Monroe City, Missouri
on November 10, 1900
I am
a firebird,
free from smoking gravel bone
five feet from the farm’s well,
four thousand miles from Erin.
Free of featherbone, fabric, and him,
I am a crow so black,
I am all things and none—
with no cloud gate to greet me.
I am breath at the bend in her neck
when I find her at the fence line
wringing washing.
I am firewater, fall sun,
and winter fever on wet sheets
when my mouth that isn’t touches
the place in her neck that still is.
Oh yes. Heaven’s a fine place
not to be.
Previously Published in the Columbia (Missouri) Art League Interpretations exhibition book 2017.