Dorianne Laux poems in APR

There are a handful of new poems by Dorianne Laux in the latest issue of the American Poetry Review, including the very good "Timing" and one about Dolly Parton's breasts that I really love but sadly APR does not have online. Seek out the issue and read it. Totally worth it.

There are a lot of 9/11 poems in the world

And a lot of them are bad. So I am sparing you by posting Dorianne's "Cello" instead.

Cello

When a dead tree falls in a forest
it often falls into the arms
of a living tree. The dead,
thus embraced, rasp in wind,
slowly carving a niche
in the living branch, shearing away
the rough outer flesh, revealing
the pinkish, yellowish, feverish
inner bark. For years
the dead tree rubs its fallen body
against the living, building
its dead music, making its raw mark,
wearing the tough bough down
as it moans and bends, the deep
rosined bow sound of the living
shouldering the dead.

(Dorianne Laux, from Facts About the Moon, 2007 WW Norton)

"Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy" by Thomas Lux

This is my favorite Thomas Lux poem. I discovered it years ago when I heard it recited by Dorianne Laux. If you ever meet her, be sure to ask her to recite it for you, too.

Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy

For some semitropical reason
when the rains fall
relentlessly they fall

into swimming pools, these otherwise
bright and scary
arachnids. They can swim
a little, but not for long

and they can’t climb the ladder out.
They usually drown—but
if you want their favor,
if you believe there is justice,
a reward for not loving

the death of ugly
and even dangerous (the eel, hog snake,
rats) creatures, if

you believe these things, then
you would leave a lifebuoy
or two in your swimming pool at night.

And in the morning
you would haul ashore
the huddled, hairy survivors

and escort them
back to the bush, and know,
be assured that at least these saved,
as individuals, would not turn up

again someday
in your hat, drawer,
or the tangled underworld

of your socks, and that even—
when your belief in justice
merges with your belief in dreams—
they may tell the others

in a sign language
four times as subtle
and complicated as man’s

that you are good,
that you love them,
that you would save them again.

(Thomas Lux, from New and Selected Poems: 1975-1995, 1997 Houghton Mifflin Company.)

Dorianne Laux in Hunger Mountain

Speaking of Dorianne Laux, she has two new poems in Hunger Mountain.