Biography:
Tracy K. Smith is the author of two previous collections of poems, Duende and The Body's Question, which won the James Laughlin and the Cave Canem Poetry Prizes, respectively. Her third collection, Life on Mars, will be published in May 2011 by Graywolf Press. She teaches at Princeton University and is currently a protégée in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
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Water, Shade
Of all the original tribes, the Javan has walked into the dappled green light. Also the Bali, flicking his tail as the last clouds in the world dissolved at his back. And the Caspian, with his famous winter mane, has lain down finally for good. Or so we believe. And so I imagine you must be even more alone now, The only heat of your kind for miles. A solitary country. At dawn, you listen past the birds rutting the trees, past even the fish at their mischief. You listen the way a woman listens to the apparatus of her body. And it reaches you, my own wish, like a scent, a rag on the wind. It will do no good to coax you back From that heaven of leaves, of cool earth and nothing to fear. How far. How lush your bed. How heavy your prey. Day arrives. You gorge, sleep, wade the stream. Night kneels at your feet like a gypsy glistening with jewels. You raise your head and the great mouth yawns. You swallow the light.
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