North Carolina Poetry Society   —   Brockman-Campbell Book Award



Where You Touched My Arm

I have set up a bright,
yellow-and-white striped cabana to shade
the lively game of cards beneath,
all that shuffling and dealing,
the bids and passes, the hearts trumping
spades, the mints and chocolates,
the frosted glasses of pink lemonade served
on the hour and the curly-haired waiter
with the black tray
discreetly ducking under palms
to collect the empties and those
waves, those waves, how they kept insisting,
insisting until the whole shore shimmered.


The Ecstasy of Regret, University of Arkansas Press, 2002

Reprinted by permission of the University of Arkansas Press.
© Copyright 2002 by Dannye Romine Powell.




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