C. D. Wright (1949–2016) published numerous poetry collections, including Rising, Falling, Hovering, which won the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize; One with Others, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry; and ShallCross (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Her collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster led to One Big Self: An Investigation, an intimate account of Louisiana inmates. Wright taught English at Brown University.

Photograph credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

From Rising, Falling, Hovering

by C. D. Wright

                                                        Yesterday

nothing was unusual    a rainy March morning

there were scores of starlings on the ground

she had been thinking about what he said

                                           What has been said is said often


Sifting for some interlinear significance    on the pallid grass

the birds    accumulated chromatic density


He stopped her (not vice versa) in the rain to tell her

he had been thinking    the voice beginning to dematerialize

against the slur of cars

                                neither of them moving just yet
People on couch
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