The Loving Detail of the Living & the Dead

"Unforgettable." —Michael Ondaatje

These rhythmic poems negotiate the collisions between past, present, and future—and outline a universal mythology of the self. Exploring the overlapping arrangements of time and memory, life and death, Sikelianos skillfully draws lines from everyday minutiae towards an interior world where we are “carrying our own living ghost inside.”

"Comes to me"

the future comes to me
with a horrifying screech
then it comes to me softly
like a weeping cloud
and it comes to me like
a fish, glass-eyed, flopping
and it comes to erotically
meanly& sharp
it comes to me cashed out rolling
electronically

in my future life I was
a cowboy, killed
in a bar fight

a flamingo in snow

Eleni Sikelianos is the author of six books of poetry, including The California Poem , a Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year. She directs the University of Denver's Creative Writing program.