• “Palm,” a Poem by Ann Lauterbach

    From Her New Collection Spell

    Palm

    You keep turning up in my dreams
    like a penny, worth less than the old,
    but shinier. I am glad to hold you
    in my warm hand and
    turn you face up, stare into your
    eyes looking at me. Hello, I say,
    and you say it back to me, like the gypsy
    in the song
    who disappears at the end.
    I vow never to spend you
    even in this
    unrequited bliss field
    with all the shades drawn down.

    _________________________________

    spellFrom Spell by Ann Lauterbach. Used with permission of Penguin Books. Copyright 2018 by Ann Lauterbach.


    Ann Lauterbach
    Ann Lauterbach
    Ann Lauterbach was born and grew up in New York City. She has been since 1992 co-chair of writing in the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, where she is also Ruth and David Schwab II Professor of Languages and Literature. Among the recognitions of her work are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (1986) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (1993). She is the author of nine previous collections of poetry, as well as three collections of prose, including The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience. She lives in Germantown, New York.





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