NEO Poet Field Guide

Full name: Alice Cone
Age: Timeless
Habitat: Kent, Ohio
Range: Within a five mile radius
Diet: Novelists David Mitchell and Haruki Murakami
Distinguishing Markings: Two chapbooks: As If a Leaf Could Be Preserved (Finishing Line, 2006), Shattering Into Blossom (Interior Noise Press, 1998)
Predators: Distractions, doubt
Prey: Focus, understanding

Call:

AT THE OPEN POETRY READING

It’s not that I love sorrow most,
it’s just that here, on the dark earth,
where the stars seem small, so far away,
when you gather together like this,
the solitary coals you offer become
a congregation of losses that discloses
what you are: lunar-orange luminaries
lighting the night sidewalk, unsheathed
candles raised in chorus.'

(re-printed from As If a Leaf Could Be Preserved, 2006)