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If

By John Rybicki b. 1961 John Rybicki

For Julie

If I could tie a river around my love’s waist like ribbon,

make sails out of her blood

and pin down death like a squirming bug.

If I could lift and rock each coffin in my arms

I would start with hers.

Source: Poetry (November 2011).

Biography

Poet John Rybicki was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He is the author of the poetry collections Traveling at High Speeds (1996) and We Bed Down Into Water: Poems (2008). His third collection, When All the World Is Old (2012), was written in response to the long illness and death of his wife, the poet Julie Moulds. His poems have been published in The Best American Poetry 2008, Alaska Quarterly Review, Field, Paris Review, . . .

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