Frannie Lindsay

Objects in Mirror Are Larger than They Appear

That beautiful girl on a bicycle smoking a cigarette:

her library books are due back

and her boyfriend is starting to ask himself if

he ever loved her, although he knows she has tried so hard

to stop making those feathery cuts on her forearms. See how

the ashes of everything

slide into their easy disguise as sunlight. See how

her backpack zipper winks like it can’t keep a secret.

Death and envy are back on the loose! They are ducking behind

each bulkhead and pile of leaves in their falling-off clothes,

reaching limblessly out to the tips of all they are not

allowed to touch.

Author: Frannie Lindsay

Frannie Lindsay is the author of six volumes of poetry, most recently The Snow’s Wife (CavanKerry Press, 2020) and If Mercy (The Word Works, 2016). She is the winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award, the Perugia Prize, the May Swenson Award, and the Washington Prize. She has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has taught numerous workshops on the poetry of grief and trauma. She is also a classical pianist.

 

Plume: Issue #32 February 2014