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  • Uptown Zoetrope
  • Susan B. A. Somers-Willett (bio)

When viewed in a certain light,some bodies astonish me.

Just as you, fellow stranger, and Imight marvel at the ruin

of these operator-less boothswith their sad, melted phones

or the raga of a student violinistwho twiddles his thinness into a blues.

Someone named urban hobo has knittedan alpaca sweater for the subway pole;

therefore, I am not alone in mywonder. Consider the nearness

of the dark in which two trains caressas they hurtle toward home stations—

frames lit from within and electric as fingertips—so that a man like you might

flicker in my window (incandescent bonesdoing a wedding jig in the strap), and a woman

like me might appear in yours (swollen handin which some trash novel flops), each of us

percussing in our cages of localand express, and why not hold you

before you trestle and spoolinto night's tender appointment? [End Page 18]

The city evening is already throwingits awe on your shoulders and so

I am loyal to your imagehere and for years—

even as your face ceasesto have a face, even as your body

is published against the sodium lights above. [End Page 19]

Susan B. A. Somers-Willett

Susan B. A. Somers-Willett is the author of two award-winning books of poetry, Quiver (University of Georgia Press, 2009) and Roam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006) and a book of criticism, The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2009). Her writing has been featured by several journals, including Iowa Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Poets & Writers, and the New Yorker's Book Bench. Her collaborative documentary poetry series "Women of Troy" aired on PRI and BBC radio affiliates and received a 2010 Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media.

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