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Deneb Mark Cunningham
I live near Charlottesville, VA, home of Thomas Jefferson,
whose two most famous buildings, Monticello and the Rotunda at the university,
are recognized by their back views. Here I am learning a lot about history.
I should never have informed Evelyn that there are days when one really
needs to go out of one's way to shower. And I should have waited, should
still be waiting, to explain to Patsy that her father's illness was
not her fault. Tell Joan that I went out with her friend for a couple
of weeks because I didn't think she (Joan) would go out with me-that
could have been omitted. Probably. I feel worse about these events now
than I did at the time, because my relations to these people are more
basically me than when I first knew them. The university has been given
some Joseph Cornell leftovers, and I went to a lecture about him titled
"Love at Last Glance." I decided I wouldn't swamp myself in
nostalgia and impotence. (Perhaps that bit about Joan could have been
left out: her friend might read it. Too late now). I won't keep myself
boxed in. More heat than light, maybe. But I'm still on the look-out,
though nearsighted as I am I often can't recognize a woman when she
waves from across the street. From behind, though, I can recognize her
walk a long block away.
© Mark Cunningham
Mark Cunningham received an
MFA from the University of Virginia, and still lives in the Charlottesville
area. His astronomical poems take as their starting point some element
in the shape, symbolism, or scientific knowledge about the title subject,
and go from there. Though the title subject might never appear in the
poem, its characteristics determine what goes in.
His poems have appeared in Paragraph
and Small
Spiral Notebook; a selection of his poems on parts of the body,
is on the Mudlark
website.
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