Blade by Blade - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Danusha Laméris, a poet and essayist, was raised in Northern California, born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother. Her first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her work has been published in The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, Orion, and The American Poetry Review. Her second book, Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press), was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Award and recipient of the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. She is currently on the faculty of Pacific University's low residency MFA program. She co-founded The Hive Poetry Collective, a radio show, podcast, and event hub in Santa Cruz, California, where she was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate, and co-leads the HearthFire Writing Community and Poetry of Resilience.

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FIRE SEASON

Meanwhile the motorcycles

churr down Pacific Avenue,

revved and ready to head north

up highway one, past the rough

surf and golden cliffs, past

small towns held together

by roadside restaurants serving up

burgers and artichoke bisque.

Just look at the pelicans

hanging low on the late-day wind

above the corrugated line

of the horizon. It's the season

of fire, but all I can see is water.

Water running out as far

as the stitched hem of sky.

An epoch of water

laying low under the white

capped waves.

I have wanted to live

in this Paradise forever,

to dwell here on this

cracked continental edge

inhaling the fragrance

of salt and seaweed,

stepping on the loose

gravel leading down

to the shore, waters

in which I was baptized by

a wild froth of surf

that filled my eyes, my ears,

my mouth as I tumbled

shoreward. If I belong anywhere,

it's here on this scorched

rib of field leading

to the sand. Walcott once said

The frame of human happiness

is time. Then frame me here,

caught in the early days

of autumn, in this late era,

a hint of smoke

lingering in the air.

Santa Cruz, California, 2022

NOCTURNE

The past is a country of darkness, its long nights

and arctic sun, slung low over the horizon.

The young woman you were, rising early, washing up

the dishes left in the sink, attending to the kettle's

high-pitched wail. You can't go back there,

even as a passenger, can't ride the night rails

to find yourself locked in that long-ago on loop—

the drive to the hospital and back, the child still caught

mid-seizure, the doctor with the telepathic touch,

leaning over him with a needle to pierce his invisible veins.

How long will we stay there, trapped in that tableau?

Time, honeyed and slow, the nurse setting out

the warm towels, the man in the next cubicle

yelling, “You can't make me!" in his torn voice,

his feral beard pointing north. What is it I want?

What is it I keep forgetting? Look at the nurse,

her blue scrubs, her small, pearl earrings.

The doctor's pressed shirt and placid brow. As if

we'd all arrived dressed for the occasion

of death. Look at my son's black hair. See how

we hover there at the edge of it, the stars,

barely visible through the window, small

specks ticking the dark, fixed in place.