ISSUE 35
May 2007

Gretchen Primack

 

Gretchen Primack's publication credits include The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, FIELD, New Orleans Review, Cimarron Review, Rhino, and others. Her manuscript "Fiery Cake" has been shortlisted for several prizes. She lives in the Hudson Valley with a beloved human and many beloved animals, and teaches at Bard College and SUNY-Ulster, as well as at two local prisons through the Bard Prison Initiative.

August    


All right, Doris, it's a perfect dusk
for a walk. I've never seen
such a fuzzed mushroom. A few
yards ahead, I've never known one
to show so much gill.

Doris, your profile is dreadful
in the violet light. Leave beauty
to the newts, and these dozen
waterbugs, wrestling
with their own versions
of bridges and dams.

The clouds look
like shovelfuls of dirt.
I'm so exhausted, it's as if
I did that landscaping.

No, Doris, not from anything
in particular: just being
here, and I know you know
what I mean.

 

 

Gretchen Primack: Poetry
Copyright ©2007 The Cortland Review Issue 35The Cortland Review