Celebrating 15 Years
By JACQUELYN POPE
Whatever possessed you
pursues me. Whatever
unnerved you sings me
to sleep, repeats and repeats,
insists. Whatever composed
you constricts me. Where
you were bright I was blind.
Whatever you saved
I’ve squandered. Where you
were soft I was scabbed.
Whatever consoled you
confuses me, retreats
and retreats, insists.
Whatever the heart wills,
hands divide. Wherever
the bough breaks, the baby
follows, cradled for a fall.
Jacquelyn Pope is the author of Watermark. Hungerpots, her translations of the Dutch poet Hester Knibbe, is forthcoming. She is the recipient of a 2015 NEA Translation Fellowship, a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, and awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
