Claudia Burbank: Surge
Something has changed, the world feels strange.
Even clouds don’t move right any more.
It comes down
to a pocketful of currants, fierce clutch of ivy,
the fetal colt galloping in the womb.
On another island people chatter to the air,
silver snails in their ears, oblivious to fallout, out—
stretched hands.
With all their hearts they still believe
they shall be loved, forgiven in the eye
of a salt-blind sun, dinners cooked, plates washed,
children sent to school.
They haven’t heard
the last telegram in the world has been sent saying
god (stop) no longer exists (stop) not even for drunkards.
Let us be
gentle when we question our fathers—gray, unleaved
trees remember nothing and no one
can really say what grass is, green is, blackbird.
CLAUDIA BURBANK is a graduate of Vassar College and pursued her MBA at New York University. Her honors include the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award, two Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Fellowship at the Jentel Artist Residency, the Inkwell Prize, and several Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, Best American Poetry, and Poets & Writers websites, and published in such journals as Subtropics, Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Washington Square Review, and North American Review.
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