Spring 2016, Volume 20

Poetry by Traci Brimhall

If You Want to Fall in Love Again

Undress by your window with the lights on.
I will sing a ballad about your shoulders

to crickets flicking through the grass.
If you want to fall in love again, mail me

a butcher knife and six baked apples.
Write me a poem that begins: “If you want

to fall in love again, meet me in the mint field
under a black umbrella.” I will bring you

the spur I took from a rooster’s leg when
its fight was over. If it’s love you want,

fall from a plane. Let the ocean catch you.
If it’s forgiveness you want, fall down

the stairs. Let me bind each broken rib,
eat the fruit rotting in your open mouth.

 

—Originally in Volume 11, Fall 2011

 

BIO: Traci Brimhall is the author of three collections of poetry: Saudade (forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press), Our Lady of the Ruins (2012), which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize; and Rookery (2010). Her poems and essays have appeared in many well-known publications including The New Yorker, Poetry and New England Review. She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Kansas State University.