Sky a shook poncho.
Roof wrung. Mind a luna moth
Caught in a banjo.
This weather’s witty
Peek-a-boo. A study in
Insincerity.
Blues! Blooms! The yodel
Of the chimney in night wind.
That flat daffodil.
With absurd hauteur
New tulips dab their shadows
In water-mutter.
Boys are such oxen.
Girls! — sepal-shudder, shadow-
Waver. Equinox.
Plums on the Quad did
Blossom all at once, taking
Down the power grid.
MORE FROM THIS ISSUE
This poem originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of Poetry magazine
Poet Richard Kenney was born in 1948 in Glens Falls, New York and earned a BA from Dartmouth College. His first collection of poetry, The Evolution of the Flightless Bird (1984), received the Yale Younger Poets Prize. The book’s formal ambitiousness and technical facility, including an extended sonnet sequence, presaged Kenney’s future work, which has won accolades for its deft use of traditional forms and themes as well as its . . .
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