In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

733 Jeffrey Skinner “Stay” Jeffrey Skinner, a husband and father, paints a Louisville street scene with people that he knows will not stay—except in his poem. Skinner is a professor of English and the director of creative writing at the University of Louisville. His collections include Late Stars (1985) and The Company of Heaven (1992). h A clearance sale banner has broken free and risen momentarily into clouds: Everything Goes. Cool air, Canadian import, silvers the look of grass and branch, each leaf a tuning fork set humming, each shadow exact, razor-cut. Across the street Frank rakes his hosta bed; the scritch of tines jerks up my dog’s head briefly. But it’s a known sound, and she sinks back into the furred rumple of dream. My daughters have entered their teens intact, whole shells, rarely found, waiting to be lifted and filled with a new element, air breathers now. Everyone alive is arrayed. I don’t say joyous, I say singular constellation. And I want everything to stay as it is: stay, cloud pinned over the slaughterhouse on Market Street, stay voices of men laying concrete on Mossrose. Stay Sarah, whose body has sifted mine fifteen years. Stay sober mind, stay necessary delusions. Stay shadows, air, rake, dog. Good stay. Good. ...

Share