Image source: http://thisgurllovesjune.blogspot.com
This week’s featured poem from Slate is entitled Tomorrow Night, Shake Me and is written by Terri Witek. As always, I want to encourage all of the blog readers to head over to Slate (just click the poem title here) to listen to Terri Witek read her poem aloud. As I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me say, hearing a poem read aloud by its author is an important thing to experience. So be sure to check that out.
Terri Witek, according to her website, has written several books to date. These include Exit Island (2012), The Shipwreck Dress (2008) — a Florida Book Award winner — and Robert Lowell and LIFE STUDIES: Revising the Self (1993). She currently teaches English at Stetson University, where she holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing.
Tomorrow Night, Shake Me, by Terri Witek
The world was at its end again.
The houses all wore hats of fire.
We couldn’t find each other.
Wolves pawed clouds,
crows tunneled. Last grabbed objects,
instantly regretted, dropped,though one child still clutched a feather
and a few things stayed unreasonably in place—
gravestones, oranges, beds.Most of us tongued seeds, loved strangers.
Why not? Soon it would be noon forever.
We couldn’t find each other.
The great toleration was finished.
The world rushed into feather, then wind.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s poem from Slate. To find more of these, feel free to browse the archives.
– Jet Fuel Blog Editor, Mary Egan
