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Child in the Road
Cindy Savett
Parlor Press
Anderson, South Carolina
www.parlorpress.com
Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
© 2007 by Cindy Savett
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Savett, Cindy, 1953-
Child in the road / Cindy Savett.
p. cm. -- (Free verse editions)
ISBN 978-1-60235-029-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-031-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-030-4 (adobe ebook)
I. Title.
PS3619.A85C47 2007
811’.6--dc22
2007037865
Printed on acid-free paper.
Cover photograph: “Walking Away Girl” © 2007 by Olga Sapegina. Used by permission.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper, cloth and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail [email protected].
for Rachel
July 19, 1991 – May 26, 2000
Contents
VI the blue name Rachel
IX in the temporary mist of prayer
X is your question
Acknowledgments
Poems from Child in the Road have appeared in Margie, Heliotrope, Diner, LIT, The Marlboro Review, 26 Magazine, CAB/NET, and tinysides.
I alibis
I am sorry for the cradle
the walk between dreams
for the distance ignited
in your eyes
I count
seeds from wavering dogwoods
collect white knives
from your mouth
of soft death
the assault and the still place
blessings dark from the middle song
of roiling waters between my teeth
night ruminations
of an oak trunk and the overgrown thunder
a turn of justice in the branches
small forecast in single flight
a flash of gold
of lost water and the wreckage
my honey breath
lies in the shelter of your bones
soiled
by the sounds of the dead
that caravan beneath my feet
I am tethered by alibis of blue air
volumes of silence catch in my voice
signet of the forgotten
and the listed dead
Motherchild
I stroke this day
speak the dance
of a closed leaf
jawed by the wind
incarnate the language
for heavy
light
buried in the white day
on unwatered
seed
mistaking
your bloodied arms
for a random touch or dark songs
for the white of your trill
and bare stripped stalk
with
