Gina Franco is the author of the poetry collections The Keepsake Storm and The Accidental, winner of the 2019 CantoMundo Prize. In addition, her poems have appeared in the anthologies A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years; The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry; and The Other Latin@: Writing against a Singular Identity. A graduate of Smith College, she earned MA and MFA degrees from Cornell University and teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.

Of the God That Comes to Mind

by Gina Franco

problem: meaning
             “thrown” and “before”: that which is flung into
the presence of, that which flies in the face of:
                                                                                    a confrontation: same
             problem as before:
                                               some nights you were away, and I
sat in the darkness on the circle of bricks before the old roses,
             the yellow light from an attic window thrown down
on my head, the light trailing into near parts of the beds, a mere
             glancing rather than a long steady look that shook
when the leaves shook in chance wind:
                                                                       relief, then self
             -reproach for believing it:

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