Current Issue: Fall/Winter 2011

Wolf Cento  
Simone Muench

A year ago we all flushed a little brighter—

yellowness drifted from the lemon tree,

gleam of the wolf among the alders

when girls dreamed in the gazebos.

That momentary illusion doesn’t last,

though you stare after it, as after a craving

that’s been embodied. The theory

of light is broken: the room dark

as black mullein, a clutch

of burnt paper. Every face a stain.

Whoever has no house now, will build none.

Deep in the gardens, a funeral procession

of ants is surging. Only the plants

remain sinless & pure.

 

[SOURCES: Anne Marie Rooney / Pablo Neruda / Robert Fitzgerald / Joaquim Cardozo / Eugenio Montale / Sandor Csoori / Roberto Juarroz / Enrique Lihn / Viteslav Nezval / Anna Swir / Joseph Brodsky / Rainer Rilke / Fritzi Harmsen van Beek / Agnes Nemes Nagy]

 

Simone Muench is the author of The Air Lost in Breathing (Marianne Moore Prize for Poetry; Helicon Nine, 2000), Lampblack & Ash (Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry; Sarabande, 2005), Orange Crush (Sarabande, 2010), and Disappearing Address co-written with Philip Jenks (BlazeVOX, 2010). She is a recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships, two Vermont Studio Center Fellowships, the 49th Parallel Poetry Award, the PSA’s Fine Lines Contest, the PSA’s Bright Lights/Big Verse Contest, and others. She directs the writing program at Lewis University where she teaches creative writing and film studies, as well as teaching at Northwestern University’s MFA program. She currently serves on the advisory board for Switchback Books, is an editor for Sharkforum, and serves as the faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review.