Next from Dragonfly: a poem inspired by a poetry reading James Galvin gave at Humboldt State University some time in the early 1990s, when I was teaching there.
At the Poetry Reading in Science B 135, A Snowstorm
—for James Galvin
Upon his shoulder, three seats to my left, her hand
slinked like the pale tongue of an ebony snake.
Really all I could see was her black sleeve
and a sliver of skirt, saffron Indian print
against his faded, ripped Levi's. He was young,
maybe not yet a college junior, slight beard
the exact shade of pilsner, rimless glasses,
white shirt with thin red stripes. A book opened
in his lap, while she tossed her hair, flaring out
beyond his head—her bronze nimbus, the sun
eclipsed. The poet's words rushing over us, hot
as a Santa Ana. Sirocco. Some devil wind.
His finger traced lines in the open book.
Her palm brushed his right ear, the stone
on her ring glinting like a crimson eye.
Under the cool fluorescent lights of this classroom
I saw the boy's blue iris pierce like a nail
into the page. Her hand forgotten, flickering
in his sandy hair. For him, the world implosive
in silence,
solitude,
and space.
A white
storm in some Wyoming wilderness.
Someone shrugs on a sheepskin coat,
rawhide gloves, beat-up Stetson. A door
opens to crystal air. The snow gleaming with
inner light. Dark tracks lead away.
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Page 28
As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.
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