August 2021
Bio Note: After 22 years of teaching in the prairies of Wisconsin, I now live in the Berkshires with my husband and two dogs where I'm grateful for mountain views, swims in as many lakes as possible once the ice thaws and before it returns, and teaching people 50+ for OLLI (Osher Life Long Learning Institute). I am co-editor (with David Graham) of After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography (Graywolf), and published widely in journals and anthologies. Forthcoming publications include two poems in The Strategic Poet, Terrapin Books, one of which appears below.
My Heart Flapped Like A Rag In My Ears
—after Beth Copeland
Father, did your heart flap like a rag
in your ears as you fell all alone to your
early a.m. death, your last name never
mine, still ripping me apart in the lag
between one childhood crying jag
or another, the word stepfather
banned from my vocabulary, clear
insult to your pride, no way to shrug
it off like the birth date, today,
April 25th you share with Ted
Kooser whose last line I’ve stolen away
from his daily poem, that barb-wired bedspread
resembling a man fallen asleep on display
then wind-torn, gone, mere heartbeat in his head.
forthcoming in The Strategic Poet, Terrapin Books
©2021 Kate Sontag
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