Sarah Gambito is the author of the poetry collections Delivered (Persea Books) and Matadora (Alice James Books). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, The Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, The New Republic, Field, Quarterly West, Fence and other journals. Her honors include the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets and Writers and grants and fellowships from The New York Foundation for the Arts, Urban Artists Initiative and The MacDowell Colony. She is Assistant Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Fordham University. Together with Joseph O. Legaspi, she co-founded Kundiman, a non-profit organization serving Asian American poets.

 

 

 

 

 

to be young

 

and spank a lightbulb. 

 

be the fleet

 

the expensive one.

loved for

 

itinerant raspberries beneath your skin

 

for your emblem so much that you think

 

 

into the sling that purposesits stone

 

you thought you’d see

 

a jellyfish,

 

a toe

 

a real estate rainbow 

 

hovering near

 

glassine and shaking

 

himself with canine aplomb

 

 

 

for we know that a dog’s love

 

is forgettable

 

reaches out to all corners

 

of the dear old forest

 

indiscriminate, indefatigable and

 

making decisions because I had to when in doubt I pinched my fingers closed the shades I held