When it Appears

Abstract

When it Appears Jerome Gagnon (bio) When it appears between the curtains,under the drawn shade,touching everything with possibility, illuminating the dim corners of your room,the keys and spare change spread across the dresserand the clothes you hung over the chair last night— know that its name is yours,that you hold it in the palm of your handlike a small, damaged bird that you release with each breath, each heartbeat,so that it may deliver its message to otherswho are waiting for something like ease, something like song. [End Page 346] Jerome Gagnon Jerome Gagnon lives in Northern California where he's worked as a teacher, tutor, and freelance journalist. A graduate of San Francisco State University's Creative Writing Program, his poetry has appeared in several journals recently, including Crab Creek Review, Archaeopteryx, and Poet Lore. A full-length collection, Rumors of Wisdom, received the Louis Poetry Book Award from Concrete Wolf Press and is forthcoming in early 2019. He's also the author of a chapbook, Spell of the Ordinary. www.jeromegagnonblog.wordpress.com. Copyright © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press