A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
Go Mary and toll the bell.
Go Mary and toll the bell.
Your boy’s coming home from Tikkrit.
Your boy’s coming home from Tikkrit.
Go from Tikkrit and your boy’s home-
coming, Mary. Toll the bell.
Sit María and wipe your tears.
Sit María and wipe your tears.
Tu padre died in Sonora’s heat.
Tu padre died in Sonora’s heat.
Sit, padre, and wipe Sonora’s tears.
Tu María died in your heat.
Chère Marie, leave your grief in Darfour.
Chère Marie, leave your grief in Darfour.
The killings will never stop.
The killings will never stop.
Leave chère Marie in Dafour;
your grief will never stop the killings.
Chère Mary, María, Marie, go, toll the killings
and wipe your tears. Never stop tu padre and
boys from coming home. Sit in grief in Darfour,
Tikkrit. Your heart, your will died in Sonora’s
heat. Leave the bell.
Lynne Thompson is the author of Beg No Pardon, which won the 2007 Perugia Press First Book Award and 2008 Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award. Thompson was recently commissioned by Emory University to write poems in collaboration with choreographer Anna Leo and by Scripps College in collaboration with sculptor Alison Saar.