STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
KARI GUNTER-SEYMOUR
On the edge that time thins, I stood
with aching arms, in a wrinkled dress.
Among the stones a holier-than-thou,
dark-robed and flailing,
recited psalms by the shovelful.
It’s the body that feels pain,
but the brain delivers it.
To this day, sometimes driving
I see black wings flapping between
bare branches and overreact.
Someone once told me we make
everyone in our dreams into another
version of ourselves, that rage isn’t rage
but sorrow turned back on itself,
the shape made of regret.
There must have been birds,
the noon-time smell of grass.
I can’t say. Feathered arias
and earthy balms are not meant for
a woman with a fist in each pocket.
Kari Gunter-Seymour’s newest collection A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen is forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, April 2020. Her work can be found in many fine publications including Still, Rattle, Main Street Rag, The American Journal of Poetry, and The LA Times, as well as on her website: www.karigunterseymourpoet.com. She is the founder and executive director of the “Women of Appalachia Project” (www.womenofappalachia.com); editor of the Women Speak anthology series and Essentially Athens Ohio; a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University and Athens, Ohio Poet Laureate Emeritus.
