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Travis Cebula

like a bird, bullet, or arrow

for the aggrieved

a flock of black

geese scissors through

the white flannel of October

snow

 

or

 

a pair of black scissors flies

through the white flannel

of an old frock

 

or 

 

a fluff of white hair floats

through an unlit

room to her marital bed

 

or

 

a puff of wind cuts

milkweed

from the night’s last caterpillar

 

or

 

this shard of soap boils 

to stone

& hangs in darkness

 

or

 

this accumulation of years

sinks home for this Mother

or this Mother is not that Mother

of yore

is not the grandmother nor your

Mother my mother remembers

 

or this

 

Mother kept a cardboard box

of Borax in the cabinet

below her sink & used it in lieu of

 

Travis Cebula graduated from the MFA program at Naropa University in 2009—the same year he became the founding editor and publisher of Shadow Mountain Press, which specializes in hand-stitched poetry chapbooks. In addition to working at his own press, he is an associate editor at Monkey Puzzle Press and teaches poetry, writing, and literature through the University of Denver’s University College and with the Left Bank Writers Retreat in Paris, France. He has authored five full-length collections of poetry and six chapbooks, the most recent of which, Dangerous Things to Please a Girl, is available now from BlazeVOX Books. Also, in 2011, Western Michigan University awarded him the Pavel Srut Fellowship for Poetry.

Bear Review

2.2

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