by Laurie Kuntz
It starts slowly, a rumble
a faint tremble, the light bulb shakes,
the windows wrench -- crushing glass sounds--
And the reign of distant chimes.
In the end all things not
secured tumble:
My friend writes from Jerusalem , she
rarely goes out, and it is not without
a scrutinizing eye:
The safest corner…
A table away from windows…
She avoids buses, walks everywhere,
but not in that carefree swagger,
barely afforded to the children who walk beside her.
My Cambodian neighbor wakes most nights,
the same dream jolts her--
mistaking the wind for thunder,
thunder for bombs,
the picture of her eldest
falls off the night table.
A woman drives over the Brooklyn Bridge,
she thinks she smells the charred papers
that fell from the sky for days.
Excavations have begun.
foundations are set; blueprints blow
against an approaching wind--
Not a bone was returned to her.
In the end, all things not secured,
Tumble into a reign,
of distant chimes.
Laurie Kuntz’s bio is as elusive as her estrogen levels. Sometimes she remembers she is a poet and sometimes not. During her five minutes in the sun Laurie has done the following: She is the winner of the 1999 Texas Review Chapbook Contest and her chapbook, Simple Gestures, is published by Texas review Press (2000). Blue Light Press published her chapbook, Women at the Onsen, in 2003. Edwin Mellen Press published her poetry collection, Somewhere in the Telling in 1999. She is the author of two English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) books, The New Arrival, BKS. 1 &2(Prentice-Hall, 1982, 1992). She was the editor of the University of Maryland's Asian Division's literary magazine, Blue Muse, and was a contributing editor to Hunger Mountain Magazine. Currently, she is a contributing editor for RockSaltPlum online literary magazine. In 2003, three of her poems were nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. More on her life and poetry can be seen on lauriekuntzpoetry.homestead.com. Pining for the tropics, she works and writes in Northern Japan.
