Poem of the Week

Lucia Perillo (1958–2016) published numerous books of poetry, including Luck Is Luck, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, Inseminating the Elephant, a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths, on the New York Times’s list of “100 Notable Books of 2012”; and On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). Perillo taught at Syracuse University, Saint Martin’s University, and Southern Illinois University.

Early Cascade

by Lucia Perillo

I couldn’t have waited. By the time you return
it would have rotted on the vine.
So I cut the first tomato into eighths,
salted the pieces in the dusk,
and found the flesh not mealy (like last year)
or bitter,
even when I swallowed the green crown of the stem
that made my throat feel dusty and warm.

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