Contents | June 2003

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.


The Atlantic Monthly | June 2003
 
Aria

by Teresa Cader
 
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audioear pictureHear the author read this poem (in RealAudio)


 After the funeral, a bird—
frantic or ecstatic or gone mad
in the rhododendron thickets—
hammered open my night,
full of verve,
sure of his pitch,
the sweltering room
levitated in miracle
and good news,

then swift and deafening,
a spring downpour
silenced him.

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Teresa Cader's most recent collection of poems is The Paper Wasp (1999). Her previous book, Guests (1991), received the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; June 2003; Aria; Volume 291, No. 5; 80.