Narrowing, by Theresa Burns

Tau, sculpture by Tony Smith, photo by Susan Napack (USA). Contemporary. Click image for artist website.

Narrowing

First it was narrowing,
then expanding,
as if breathing, as I walked around the pond,

difficult to sleep so many monuments
shifting position, brimming.

I considered its mass, surfaces.
On the bench beneath the dogwood—blue,
from the corner near the road—white,

the angles narrowing
to the west, then
as I turned to hug the curve, expanding--

like a black wing against the sky.

Theresa Burns
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Theresa Burns’ poetry, reviews, and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, America Magazine, New Ohio Review, and upstreet, among other publications. In 2017 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her second chapbook of poems, Two Train Town, was published by Finishing Line Press. A long time book editor in New York and Boston, she has taught writing at Seton Hall University, The Fashion Institute of Technology, and the 92nd Street Y. 

Tau, sculpture by Tony Smith, photo by Susan Napack (USA). Contemporary.