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’s sixth volume of poetry, The Snow’s Wife, was released in 2020 from Cavankerry Press. Her awards include the May Swenson Award, the Perugia Prize, the Benjamin Saltman Award, the Washington Prize, The Missouri Review Prize, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, and numerous periodicals such as The Yale Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Plume, Under a Warm Green Linden, and Field. She teaches workshops on the poetry of grief. She is also a classical pianist.

 

Plume: Issue #32 February 2014