Lullaby for Anyone by Stephanie Ford

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 14, 2015   Lullaby for Anyone   Stephanie Ford

Excuse me, lover. I’m busy foretelling and protesting your end. Whether I hunt, gather, barter, or sell, what I worry over   is the order: live oaks, shorelines, wide-eyed and flammable creature I adore. By day, I admit   no shadow as backup: crow, please keep your clever forensics. What would I do with a cardboard guitar, a map of the planets,   and a box of building blocks, alone? Another bereavement I haven’t unlearned: to bury one hope   inside another, and I, having made a home of limbo (I keep a black hole more spotless than cozy), once traveled through time   at will, invisible. Now, not so free. My beloved grows heavier, hardier, heavenward. Certain grief pre-scorches me.            Copyright © 2015 by Stephanie Ford. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “For me, insomnia invites a nightly rendezvous with dreaded truths: that survival is ridden with compromise, and that love further entangles us with loss. This poem attempts to make a song of entanglement—something to hum while I try to figure out how to love better in spite of, and because of, my fears.” —Stephanie Ford   Stephanie Ford is the author of All Pilgrim (Four Way Books, 2015). She lives in Los Angeles. Poetry by Ford   All Pilgrim (Four Way Books, 2015) "Literal, Littoral, Littleral" by Danielle Pafunda "Entanglement" by Jane Hirshfield "A Tyrant Seeks Conclusion in the Known Self" by Emily Kendal Frey Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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