Thursday, June 6, 2013, at 7:00 pm, poets January Gill O’Neil and Martha Rhodes will continue the sixth season of the Collected Poets Series. Mocha Maya’s Coffee House, 47 Bridge St, Shelburne Falls, MA. ($2-5 suggested donation)

January Gill O’Neil is the author of Underlife (CavanKerry Press, December 2009), and a forthcoming collection, Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, fall 2014). She earned her BA from Old Dominion University and her MFA at New York University. She is the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and an assistant professor of English at Salem State University. She lives with her two children in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Martha Rhodes is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The Beds (2012 from Autumn House), Mother Quiet (2004 from Univ. of Nebraska / Zoo Press), Perfect Disappearance (Green Rose Prize from New Issues), and At the Gate (Provincetown Arts 1995.) She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She also directs the Conference on Poetry at the Frost Place. Rhodes is the founding editor and director of Four Way Books and lives in New York City.

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THE CONCUSSION / Martha Rhodes

Let me remind you that the bile
his injury riled up arrived
on your pillow as you slept.

He would have forgotten
the shower’s purpose
were you not there,
soaping him front and back,
your hair not clean yet, braided
and complicated to unbraid
when wet and foul;
the bed hastily stripped
then re-made by you
while he, propped in a chair
and snug in your robe,
stared at—
what—

For all of this, he still
may not be kind to you again—
concussions known to turn some rabid.
Your floppy retriever. Now he’s weaving
toward coffee in the galley kitchen.
Retract your hand.

(From The Beds ©2012 by Martha Rhodes. With permission of Autumn House Press. All rights reserved.)