Lucien Darjeun Meadows 

Broken Pantoum for Leaving Home



Running over fields since dawn
                           you carry my photographs

                 as I hold your trillium seeds
                                           our note nailed to the front door

You carry my photographs
                 our note nailed to the front door
                                           sending Mother to her knees

My thumb cut like an onion
                                red spray across the barn
                 sending Mother to her knees

Red spray across the barn
                 nothing like the river I feared
                                                 pink lace etched on your throat

My camera for your knife
                                 I will find you a cave
                 pink lace etched on your throat

I will find you a cave
                sister of moss and stone
                                           under the paper wings of bats

To sleep through spring's unfolding
                             listen for the west wind
                under the paper wings of bats

Listen for the west wind
                             as I hold your trillium seeds
                dream of summer and horses
                                           running over fields since dawn

 

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Lucien Darjeun Meadows was born in Virginia. His poetry has appeared in such journals as Hayden's Ferry Review and Quarterly West, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won an Academy of American Poets Prize and the AWP Intro Journals Project. He is currently an MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. 


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