Paired

January 25, 2019

 

I take off my gloves
to pull my suitcase up
the high steps onto
the Tibet-bound train,
then wheel my case
down the aisle, hoist it
into the overhead rack,
help my family
find seats, and there—
out the window, as the train
judders forward
and I steady myself with
an outstretched hand—
I spy a glove just like mine,
fingers arching upwards
like a spent claw—
on the platform—
then clutch the one
poking from my pocket,
yank open the window
and fling it down
so the two
might be together
on someone’s hands.

 

David Allen Sullivan

David Allen Sullivan is the former poet laureate of Santa Cruz county. His books include: Strong-Armed Angels, Every Seed of the Pomegranate, a book of co-translation with Abbas Kadhim from the Arabic of Iraqi Adnan Al-Sayegh, Bombs Have Not Breakfasted Yet, and Black Ice. He won the Mary Ballard Chapbook poetry prize for Take Wing, and Tim Seibles selected Black Butterflies Over Baghdad for the Hilary Tham capital collection, Word Works Books. Salt Pruning, a co-authored book of poems with Ignatius Valentine Aloysius, was published by Hummingbird Poetry Press. A book of poems about his Fulbright year in China with his family, Seed Shell Ash, is forthcoming from Salmon Press. He teaches at Cabrillo College, where he edits the Porter Gulch Review with his students, lives in Santa Cruz with his family.

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