ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Caprice Garvin is a native New Mexican, currently residing in New Jersey. She studied in the Writing Division at Columbia University, where she was awarded The Woolrich Award for Excellence in Writing, and in the Writing Division at Sarah Lawrence College where she earned an M.F.A. in fiction. Most recently her work appeared in What Rough Beast.
Also by Caprice Garvin:
Friendship Park
Poets Resist
Edited by Michael Carter
August 29, 2019
Edited by Michael Carter
August 29, 2019
Detachment
I hadn’t meant to see. I’d been taking a break from the news.
Ever since my last medical visit, I’d preferred more uplifting distraction,
But when the article slipped to my screen, I couldn’t help but read.
Two Bodies Found in the Rio Grande.
What possible cause?
I weighed the invisibles, the current, the course,
Then blinked against my reflection. There was a photo attached.
The father. The child. The toddler’s arm still draping the neck of the father.
I rubbed my eyes — they’ve been giving me trouble lately — then stood.
Outside — my sun. My lawn. At the farthest edge,
The movement of my brook startled me. I had not seen.
What possible cause?
Extreme near-sightedness?
Shrunken periphery?
Inflammation?
I weighed the invisibles. The current. The course.
A wall-like shadow falls over the visual field.
This is an emergency situation.
A deep layer of vision has pulled back.
Cells have been separated from their own blood.
I weigh the invisibles. The current. The course.
I weigh the father, the vision that drove him.
I weigh the toddler, still tucked in her father’s shirt,
Her braids clasped with bows only hours before.
Torn fibers catch at the shades.
Somehow, I’ve lost sight of the stream.
The strand. The weeds. The unbraiding light.
On June 24, 2019, journalist Julia Le Duc photographed the lifeless bodies of two asylum seekers, a father and his daughter, who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande. “Detachment” is my response to that photograph and to the tragedy which that photograph captures.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
