All We Are Given We Cannot Hold
For the poet, no skill is more of service than observation—what is there, what once was and will be, where love left a mark. In this regard, Robert Fanning looks up to very few. Now the author of five collections of poetry and three chapbooks, Fanning teaches English and creative writing at Central Michigan University. He is also the founder/facilitator of the Wellspring Literary Series and offers a hand to other Michigan poets as director of PEN/INSULA POETRY. His work has been published in Poetry, Diode, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and other journals.
WHEN IT IS TIME
We lift the feather box
my wife placed under your bedduring hospice. She lays
a long white eagle featheron the sheet over your sleeping
chest, a gray heron featheralong the length of your legs.
Bowing over you, I openmy arms wide, rest my cheek
on your belly, my first sky.
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
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