Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

Displacement 
Judith Skillman

Rain soaks the fields.
Close in,
mustard-colored wall.
In the distance,
the gabled Victorian mansion
like a hive,
a myriad residents
who have given up
on their yards.
Always the net
with its white
gauze selvage—
volleyball, where
a girl will bruise
her arm to serve.

 

Judith Skillman is the author of twelve collections of poetry, most recently The Never (Dream Horse Press, 2010) and The White Cypress (Cervéna Barva Press, 2011). She is the recipient of awards from many organizations, including the Academy of American Poets. Her poems have appeared in Midwest Quarterly, The Iowa Review, New Poets of the American West, and others. She holds an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Maryland, and teaches for the Richard Hugo House.