JEOPARDY!
LAURA MARRIS
I was restless—the lemon tree leaving a yellow film of pollen.
Because when the chickadees cry, I feel nothing, and I fear that my heart is too cautious.
Ding ding ding. I ordered you a whiskey. That whiskey right there? That’s for you.
What is “cry wolf,” what is “circular logic?”
Are you frightened? Is your train on fire; are you here; do you need someplace to stay?
Summer night, dark shapes of trees.
Because I can’t drive on the highway without wanting to keep driving.
LAURA MARRIS has taught poetry at Boston University, most recently through Robert Pinsky’s massive open online course The Art of Poetry. She has received a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, a Daniel Varoujan Prize from the New England Poetry Club, and a Hurley Award from Boston University. Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared in Meridian, DMQ Review, H.O.W., Secousse (in French translation), The Brooklyn Rail, and The Wallace Stevens Journal. She is currently working on a translation of Louis Guilloux’s Le Sang noir for the NYRB Classics.