Issue > Poetry
Crystal Bacon

Crystal Bacon

Crystal Bacon's first book of poems, Elegy with a Glass of Whiskey, won the 2003 A. Poulin New Poetry America prize from BOA Editions and was published in 2004. She is a graduate of the Warren Wilson M.F.A. Program for Writers and her work has appeared in a variety of publications in the US and Canada and Taiwan. She is an Assistant Professor of English at the Community College of Philadelphia.  

Awake At Night

I feel beautiful, young and dying
as the cricket song lifts and calls
and you are far away. No happiness
like this. The Maples launch
their spinning seeds, such joy
in the deep air, they twirl down
like toys spun out by boys perched
amongst the leaves.

The lamp shine spreads, honey
around my eyes, and my feet
soles hum to the floor. The hole
inside the core of me rubs its wings,
spins with seeds. I'm not leaving:
rooting, lifting leafing.

My Soul Is A Candle That Burned Away The Veil

St. John of the Cross

Everything illuminated becomes this light;
I cannot close my eyes. They become the sky,
become the flame of sheer delight.  
The boil of hawks in the kettle of sky,
a horse's face, black bull's black eye,
the piebald cow with her bawl of fright.
Within the hills, the bowl of the valley
cradles the mountains crested in white.
Long though I walk, I will not die.
Everything illuminated becomes this light.

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