Poem-A-Day: In Portraits in Seasons by Danielle Pafunda

In Portraits in Seasons by Danielle Pafunda As a feral thing would. As a dead leaf whose crunch she herself hears, whose   buggy interior floods the sidewalk. Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same.   Where you've tucked your pen into your notes, I tuck my fingernail, burned and cursed and   shut tight my eyes. I tuck my feet up like a girl. In this corner, warm milk fall of light something   far from revealing its bone-blank eyes, that is, the eyes downcast in every portrait, shaded   the ribbon a bright blue furl across the gaze, the peculiar mother, her arm around a naked toddler   the fall of light. Betrays nothing. The book in hand, betrays. As a feral thing would,   I shred its binding and burn through it for warmth.    Copyright © 2013 by Danielle Pafunda. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem "Robert Browning's 'Wanting is--What?' came to me courtesy of Poem-A-Day with its line Beamy / the world, yet a blank all the same, its impossible completions, the gaze, beams that shine & eyes that beam, frames and lenses. Mary Cassatt's The Caress also makes an appearance here. I thought about that never-attainable completion gestured to by objects and postures in the frame, and also how vexed & wonderful to be a woman artist who deeply loves the art that came before."  --Danielle Pafunda Poetry by Pafunda Manhater (Dusie Press, 2012)   Poem-A-Day was launched in 2006 and features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.   Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org. May 23, 2013 Danielle Pafunda is the author  of several books of poetry including, Manhater (Dusie Press, 2012). She teaches at the University of Wyoming. Related Poems All She Wrote by Harryette Mullen Inert Perfection by Edna St. Vincent Millay While Writing by Noelle Kocot

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