Danielle Cadena Deulen
Begin in September. The September before I knew you.
Wake up next to the smoky hair
of a woman you want absolution from
before she, whoever she is, wakes.

Feel the way summer air dies
like moths in the corners of her house,
the fluttering, gray quell of your heart.

Slip out so quietly she can't contest
the echo of the unlatching or your boots
on varnished floors. Open her front door
into February, the February before your graduation.

Walk until you find the high red window
of the first girl to break your heart.
Stand beneath it. Think of her dark hair.
Think of the night she came down to you,
made you promise in the dark-wet foxtails
at the end of the street, the ocean air cooling
her mouth as it opened over you,
how the night was a knot she undid
with her slender fingers, then withdrew.

Now, find wish-seeds floating
through the Augusts of your childhood,
tangled in uncombed hair and the sugar-taste
of fried dough. Remember the exhaustion of fireworks,
rain warming on the hoods of cars, thistles hiding
in the long slender bodies of sweet-grass,
sandy blankets rubbed with oil,
airplanes writing names in the sky.

And don't come back to me, Love,
with your kiss full of regret. Return to the home
you built of twine and fallen branches,
to the girls playing hopscotch
near the neighbor's brambles.

Recall the feel of sap, the rules of hide-and-seek,
the bitter milk of dandelion dared to the tongue.
from the journal PRAIRIE SCHOONER
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There’s a depth of knowledge that one carries with them from the end of a love affair—not only what you have learned from the relationship, but the intimate knowing of another person’s heart, mind, and life stories. This poem begins at the end of an affair, with the speaker meditating on the lost loves of the lost beloved, helping herself understand how they would arrive to this moment of departure.

Danielle Cadena Deulen on "Reversal"
Composite color image of headshots of the 2022 Poetry Fellows
"Honoring Five Outstanding Young Poets"

"The Poetry Foundation announces the 2022 Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellows are Tarik Dobbs, Diamond Forde, Tariq Luthun, Troy Osaki, and Alan Pelaez Lopez. Each poet receives a $25,800 prize....'It is a distinct pleasure to celebrate these talented young poets, who are already so committed to bringing poetry forward,' said Michelle T. Boone, president of the Poetry Foundation." 

via POETRY FOUNDATION
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Cover image of Eugene Ostashevsky's translation of Vasily Kamensky's book, Tango with Cows
What Sparks Poetry:
Eugene Ostashevsky on Vasily Kamensky's “Constantinople"

"The Cubist language of the poem imposes cuts on words, fractures them into planes by repetition and variation, and recombines parts of words to build other words. Although the poem lacks a single order of reading—nor do we have evidence that Kamensky ever performed it out loud—it pulsates with sound repetitions. Repetitions convert its word lists into the sonic counterparts of Cubist planes, with each word turning into a formal variation of the one above it."
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