{"id":4591,"date":"2017-01-10T10:53:03","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T10:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4591"},"modified":"2017-01-10T15:55:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T15:55:24","slug":"digging-into-the-city-poem-marci-calabretta-cancio-bello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4591","title":{"rendered":"DIGGING INTO THE CITY & Poem – Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello"},"content":{"rendered":"

You ask me why I did not
\npin a star beside this city
\nor that, & my maps
\nare gathered in graphite
\n& not ink.
\n 
\nPerhaps I did,
\n& did not care
\nto rebuild that city
\njust yet for you.
\n 
\nPerhaps
\nI wanted to remember
\na song curling up the vents
\n& bent over my ear
\nlike the willow tree outside
\nrooted deep as basement:
\n 
\nBrother, or birds, now gone.
\n 
\nWhat between this city\u2019s bricks
\ncounts as mortar, counts as awl?
\n 
\nPerhaps you lift a stone,
\n& perhaps a snowplow
\nor chipmunk escapes,
\ntiny roar scraping asphalt
\nas it slips away among the lilacs.
\n 
\nPerhaps I lift a bonsai pot
\nor a hummingbird\u2019s wing,
\n& perhaps all the names
\ngathered in my shirt hem
\nfall in handfuls as I work
\n 
\n& perhaps I don\u2019t notice
\nuntil we finish, too late\u2014
\ndaybreak, hunting
\nseason:
\nthe deer come
\nswift toward this last bit
\nof rubble, & we are
\nwearing the wrong colors.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

THRESHOLD<\/strong>
\n 
\nI don\u2019t know your face
\nbut I recognize you
\nas a man selling lemons
\nor limes in the rain,
\nor I don\u2019t & you are
\nonly membranes of light
\nbetween the palm
\n& its coin or another
\npalm never pressed
\nagainst mine.
\n 
\nAre you a woman
\nwho swallows rain
\nin the form of crushed ice?
\nOr a wolf-child
\nwho sleeps in the garage
\npooling so fast with exhaust
\nI can\u2019t hold it all together
\nwith one breath? & here
\nbetween you and you,
\nif I wipe the rain
\nfrom my eyes, then you are
\nboth & neither & gone.
\n 
\nLet me step down, I said,
\nor I didn\u2019t & wouldn\u2019t
\nstep down into the water
\nbecause it was everything
\nmy body isn\u2019t & was
\nready to engulf my face
\n& steal its edges away
\nwith its retreating
\nimpression of me,
\nthe version that was
\njust my face & maybe
\na bit more or less.
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

\"nn-headshot-marci\"Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox<\/em>, which won the 2015 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry (Pittsburgh, 2016), and has received poetry fellowships from Kundiman and the Knight Foundation, among others. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Best New Poets 2015, Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art, december magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, Narrative Magazine,<\/em> and more. She serves as cofounding editor for Print-Oriented Bastards and producer for The Working Poet Radio Show. www.marcicalabretta.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You ask me why I did not pin a star beside this city or that, & my maps are gathered in graphite & not ink.   Perhaps I did, & did not care to rebuild that city just yet for you.   Perhaps I wanted to remember a song curling up the vents & bent [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[240,149],"class_list":["post-4591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-nyc-skyline-at-night-kyle-kirschbaum","tag-wikicommons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4591"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4609,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591\/revisions\/4609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}