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CHRISTOPHER KONDRICH

Schedule for Burning


The sea consumed by anxious gulls
is the sound I hear on the dark surface of things.
I follow what I call my soul
to the shore where a bonfire rages, 

fronds and scraps of weed 
cast off as if they were a burden.
One of us comes back from gathering, arms
full of the arms of trees 
 
which we sling through sleeves
to scare off what we imagine hunts us.
We know others are here 
because we hear, because we haven’t had a meal 

and hear with our stomachs.
I can just reach over and grasp the dark air
and the dark air obliges. I can lie down
if I want to and the sand will adjust 

its tongue. It isn’t so bad
this night among many, 
this break in the reign of the sun.
We get to lean into the fire

to find the fire on our faces. We get to grasp
a part of an indefinite figure
and picture the whole it’s a part of,
ribbons of the night’s black hair. 

We get to stay up past burning, linger
in the breath of the fire, which we inhale
and love, having wayward love
and so much of it that it turns inward 

and is lost. Friend, if you are there,
come to meet me. I am drifting devoured.
I am ready to say goodnight
if you’d come meet me so I can release it.  
 

 
72   The Paris-American

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Christopher Kondrich is the author of Contrapuntal, a New Measure Poetry Prize finalist, which was recently published in the Free Verse Editions poetry series by Parlor Press. His poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals including American Letters & Commentary, Barrow Street, Boston Review, Cimarron Review, Free Verse, Meridian, Seneca Review, Verse Daily and Washington Square. He holds degrees from Fordham University, Columbia University, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Denver where he is an editor for Denver Quarterly.


   
   Next week's poet:

 Roger Reeves
 
Winner of the 2013 The Paris-American Reading Series Contest
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