Forgiveness in Lafayette
I believe I could let silkworms hug
the scarlet breath from the mulberry
choking the lilac in the northeast corner
of the yard, but isn’t that blood
vengeance? You tell me I need cold
reason, but reason isn’t cold,
and people grow heavy with what they carry,
with what they can’t undo. I dug
up the tulip bulbs on the north
this spring, where they didn’t want
to open; I’ll move them in September
to a spot beside the black-eyed Susans.
Let’s drive to Lafayette, let’s bite
the bullet, bury the hatchet, build
another bridge to nowheresville,
because that’s what people do, that’s
what people say. You think I’m lying
to you. Then the road bends.
This selection comes from the book, The Towns, available from Unicorn Press. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Alex DiFrancesco.
Kathleen Kirk is the author of eight poetry chapbooks, including The Towns from Unicorn Press. Her poems appear in such print and online journals as Stirring, Redheaded Stepchild, Waccamaw, Nimrod, Poetry East, and Atlanta Review. Her Patricia Dobler Award-winning poem, “Fox Collar,” is just out in Voices From the Attic. Kathleen is the poetry editor for Escape Into Life.
Alex DiFrancesco is a multi-genre writer who has published work in Tin House, The Washington Post, Pacific Standard, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The New Ohio Review, Brevity and more. In 2019, they published their essay collection Psychopomps (Civil Coping Mechanisms Press) and their novel All City (Seven Stories Press), which was a finalist for the Ohioana Book Awards. Their short story collection Transmutation (Seven Stories Press) is forthcoming in 2021. They are the recipient of grants and fellowships from PEN America and Sundress Academy for the Arts. They are an assistant editor at Sundress Publications.
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