Poem A Day – May 16, 2016

#MIDDLEBURY

A fourteen-line poem on healing

Julie Carr

1. I cannot freeze sound
2. or collapse phantom scaffolding
3. I open one contradiction
4. after another. They call this “erotic intelligence”
5. or emptiness
6. They abuse the powdery line
7. at once blessed and beautiful
8. and blank
9. as benign limbs
10. Where have you gone in your red dress?
11. You have done nothing wrong and you are not condemned
12. Naked as a word
13. the body’s modifications, no matter how infinitesimal
14. are all that is given

About this poem
“On the first page of the newspaper was a photograph of four policemen beating and arresting a protestor in Istanbul. All five men pictured looked to be between 18 and 25 years old. I wrote this that morning with a friend, whose cancer had returned, also in mind.” – Julie Carr

About Julie Carr
Julie Carr is the author of “Think Tank” (Solid Objects 2015). She teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder and lives in Denver.

The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.

(c) 2016 Julie Carr. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.