There were fingerprints on the nape of your neck, hands behind your eyes (eyes like stop—and, oh, so brief). Have you forgotten: sweep and inner door, the sky arrow-boned and anxious—misgivings that came too late? I give you this: something ageless and undefined under sprawled stars—one night on the Via Sacra, in and through the Arch of Titus—an idea that slipped into consciousness; a circling bird with wings stretched farther than flight. And no words to string the air into music. Which of us wanted more, and what did loneliness mean except that summer was over?

Adele Kenny

is the author of 25 books and chapbooks (poetry and nonfiction). Her poems, reviews, and articles have been published in journals, books, and anthologies worldwide. Among other awards, she has received poetry fellowships from the NJ State Arts Council, a first place Merit Book Award, a Writer’s Digest Award, a Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and Kean University’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Her book A Lightness, A Thirst, or Nothing at All (prose poems, 2015) was a Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. Her most recent book, Wind Over Stones (2019), is a collection of ekphrastic prose poems with QR codes that link to images of the paintings that inspired them.

Founding director of the Carriage House Poetry Series and poetry editor of Tiferet Journal, Ms. Kenny has read in the US, England, Ireland, and France, and has twice been a Geraldine R. Dodge Festival poet.

Author’s website: www.adelekenny.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ “Different Paths Up the Same Mountain”: An Interview with Adele Kenny by Matthew Thorburn in The Ploughshares Blog (2 February 2016)