I Could Let You Go by Thomas Dooley

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 30, 2014   I Could Let You Go   Thomas Dooley

as if opening a crepe sail on a raft of linden downriver with no glacial cut swerve down soft like bourbon if I could ask the waters then to chop to shake an apology when you cry I feel a wet bank in me ring dry here I’ll wrap you in the piano shawl from the upright to your fists a spray of dandelion and comb my last compassion to grasp. Goodbye, friend. Willows dip to your lips dew from their leafed digits feast now on the cold blue soup of sky the iron from bankwater gilts your blood I’ll break a bottle on your gunwale and read broken poems from the shore as the dark river curls back white from the cheap timber as if letting what’s made to drift drift.            Copyright © 2014 by Thomas Dooley. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘I Could Let You Go’ was an opportunity to imagine a ritual for saying goodbye. I wanted this poem to become something more, something sturdy, like a vessel that could hold and carry away something heavy.” —Thomas Dooley   Thomas Dooley is the author of Trespass (Harper Perennial, 2014). He is the artistic director of Emotive Fruition, a theatre collective of actors and poets in New York. He lives in Brooklyn. Most Recent Book by Dooley   Trespass (Harper Perennial, 2014) "Kissing Stieglitz Good-Bye" by Gerald Stern "Good Night" by Wilhelm Müller "Late August on the Lido" by John Hollander Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. 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.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038