Thursday, July 25, 2013

JOHANNA SKIBSRUD ~






St. Lucia



On St. Lucia's day when I was twelve I lit
the candles of the table wreath, put it on my head,
and walked upstairs.


I held a
thawed-out muffin, and a cup of coffee on a tray.


What a fright I gave my mother,
coming slowly up her stairs — the candles


hovering at conflicted angles above my head,
and my long old fashioned nightgown
tripping me a little on the way.


How kind she should have noticed, then, and


mentioned, my extraordinary
beauty in that moment.


Before she leapt at me and blew the candles out.






___________________________________________

Johanna Skibsrud
   (b. 1980)
her debut book of poems Late Nights With Wild Cowboys
was published in 2008 from Gaspereau Press.
A native of Meadowville, Nova Scotia, she currently lives
in Tucson, Arizona. 


 The Sentimentalists (fiction)
 This Will Be Difficult to Explain, and Other Stories (fiction)

 I Do Not Think That I Could Love a Human Being (poetry)

Late Nights with Wild Cowboys (poetry)



 _____________________________________________






I Had Imagined Them, Unthinkingly



Where do they go in this
            part of the world?


I had
imagined them,


           unthinkingly, in the


southern part of Florida with


ours, or down as far as
            Mexico,


As if all
birds met there, like
heaven.