I’ve carved a cave in the mountainside.
I’ve drilled for water, stocked provisions
to last a lifetime. The walls are smooth.
We can live here, love, safe from elements.
We’ll invent another love that can’t destroy.
We’ll make exquisite reproductions of our
selves, immortal on these walls.
And when
this sea that can’t support us is burned clean,
when the first new creatures crawl from it,
gasping for water, air, more wondrous and more
wild than earth’s first couple, they shall see
there were two before them: you and me.
A. Poulin, Jr., “Cave Dwellers,” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 2001 by the estate of A. Poulin, Jr. Used by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.
Source:
Selected Poems (BOA Editions Ltd., 2001)
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Poet
A. Poulin Jr.
1938–1996
POET’S REGION
U.S., Mid-Atlantic
Subjects
Marriage & Companionship,
Home Life,
Relationships,
Living,
Love,
Romantic Love,
First Love
Occasions
Anniversary,
Weddings
Holidays
Valentine's Day
Poet, translator, and editor Alfred A. Poulin Jr. was born in 1938 and grew up in Lisbon, Maine. He earned a BA from St. Francis College in Maine, an MA from Loyola University in Chicago, and MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Founder of BOA editions, a poetry press devoted to publishing work by contemporary international and American authors, Poulin was also a professor and translator. He wrote a number of . . .
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