Stephen Kuusisto

WHEN FREUD WAS A CRIPPLED BOY

First I should say I believed in the magnolia
& bees in tall grass, always sweetly confused

For those are the first books of a child
I lay many hours & stared through stems of clover

Field transparent, air like a tissue--sober trees
Making words at a distance

My bones, like cardboard lions
Were strong when still

But moving they flailed
My secret hip, telegraphing winter & rain

Stephen Kuusisto is the author of the memoirs Planet of the Blind and Eavesdropping and a volume of poems, Only Bread, Only Light. He has recently completed a new collection of poems, Letters to Borges which will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. He teaches in the MFA program in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.