American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation

Tangled under a blanket
we could melt curbed snow,
smoke up windows,

desire unable to hold.
Boiling water, morning
after, sudden laughter.

You walk into my dream:
older man, panzer tan,
builder hands.

How could I have imagined
you would turn: spoiled meat,
October leaf, yellow teeth.

Maryfrances Wagner’s books include Salvatore’s Daughter, Light Subtracts Itself, Red Silk (Thorpe Menn Book Award for Literary Excellence), Dioramas (Mammoth) and Pouf (FLP). Poems have appeared in New Letters, Midwest Quarterly, Laurel Review, Voices in Italian Americana, Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (Penguin Books), Literature Across Cultures (Pearson/Longman), Bearing Witness, The Dream Book, An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women (American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation), et.al. She co-edits I-70 Review.

To find out more, enjoy this previous interview with Maryfrances:

Tag: American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation