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Spring 2006 • Vol. XXVIII No. 2 • Poetry |

Essentialism

The etiolated light, the binarisms
on either side of the horizon—control, ignorance,
disregard, want—the black dog

cowering in the kitchen where I used to love.
Now walk away, now crutch a path
into the stinging afternoon, the cars

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Quan Barry's latest book, Water Puppets, won the AWP Poetry Prize. Her debut novel, She Weeps Each Time You're Born, will be published by Pantheon in 2015.

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