calculated
the correct thrust-to-weight ratio and heave dynamics.
On YouTube you can watch it flying in the moonlight
outside the engineering building with the fake Ionic columns.
I said âsorrowâ for the fear that in the future all the beauties
will be replaced by replicas that have more glare and blare and bling.
RoboSeed, RoboRose, RoboHeart, RoboSoulâ
this way thereâll be no blight
on any of the cherished encapsulations
when the blight was what we loved.
5.
They grow in chains from the bigleaf maple, chains
that lengthen until they break.
In June,
when the days are long and the sky is full
and the swept pile thickens
with the ones grown brown and brittle,
oh see how Iâve underestimated the persistence
of the lace in their one wing.
6.
Is there no slim chance I will feel it
when some molecule of me
(annealed by fire, like coal or glass)
is drawn up in the phloem of a maple
(please scatter my ashes under a maple)
so my speck can blip out
on a stem sprouting out of the fork of a branch,
the afterthought of a flower
that was the afterthought of a bud,
transformed now into a seed with a wing,
like the one I wore on the tip of my nose
back when I was green.
About the Author
Lucia Perilloâs fifth book of poems,
Inseminating the Elephant
(Copper Canyon, 2009), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and received the Washington State Book Award and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize from the Library of Congress. Her book of stories,
Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain
, will be published by Norton in 2012, and a book of her essays,
Iâve Heard the Vultures Singing
, is out in paperback from Trinity University Press.
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following publications, in which these poems first appeared:
The American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Barrow Street, Kenyon Review Online, The Los Angeles Review, New England Review, The New Yorker, Orion, Ploughshares, Poetry, Rio Grande Review, Salt Hill, Seneca Review, Southern California Review, Subtropics, Tin House,
and
Voices in Italian Americana.
Copyright 2012 by Lucia Perillo
All rights reserved
Cover art: Giotto di Bondone, detail from
The Last
Judgement
, ca. 1305.
Photo credit: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.
Support Copper Canyon Press:
If you have enjoyed this title, please consider supporting Copper Canyon Press and our dedication to bringing the work of emerging, established, and world-renowned poets to an expanding audience through eBooks:
www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/donation.asp
Contact Copper Canyon Press:
To contact us with feedback about this title send an e-mail to:
[email protected] The Chinese character for poetry is made up of two parts: âwordâ and âtemple.â It also serves as pressmark for Copper Canyon Press.
Since 1972, Copper Canyon Press has fostered the work of emerging, established, and world-renowned poets for an expanding audience. The Press thrives with the generous patronage of readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, students, and fundersâ everyone who shares the belief that poetry is vital to language and living.
The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
Amazon.com
Anonymous
Arcadia Fund
John Branch
Diana and Jay Broze
Beroz Ferrell & The Point, LLC
Mimi Gardner Gates
Carolyn and Robert Hedin
Golden Lasso, LLC
Gull Industries, Inc. on behalf of William and Ruth True
Lannan Foundation
Rhoady and Jeanne Marie Lee
Maurer Family Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
New Mexico Community Foundation
Penny and Jerry Peabody
Joseph C. Roberts
Cynthia Lovelace Sears and Frank Buxton
Washington State Arts Commission
Charles and Barbara Wright
To learn more about underwriting Copper Canyon Press titles, please call 360-385-4925 ext. 103