Books form cliffs. We fall into wanton characters’ arms. Nothing holds us. Just whispers. Whims. Each page turn, turns us into someone dissolute. The author tells us we carry a nest of laundry. We finger undone buttons. I found the unexpected villain at the end. A valley with trees tumbling down the sides. A gate ruined. A gauntlet of afternoon light, a woolly ruff of heat, stone-faced cats and rusty bikes. When he came to me, I followed him, through murmuring air, the wet suck of summer. Now I wish for turbulence—disturbing, evocative. It rattles in the gravel a broken tube of nickels. Asheville Poetry Journal December 2017
Poems by Judy Kaber