Blackbird Archive
← v17n2, Fall 2018
Poetry · Volume 17, Number 2

The Seal

Ann Townsend

Because you’ve gone to seek your fame

on another stage, and because

my legs grow strong on rage and running

and summer peaches ripen

insistently, reminding me

of your mouth on mine

when I was ten, because the fruit in jars

is flecked like the skin of your hands,

because I twist the lids to seal them

and leave them cooling

on the counter, because

I run away each time but then

familymemorydesire
Ann Townsend

Ann Townsend is the author of the poetry collections Dear Delinquent (Sarabande Books, 2019), The Coronary Garden (Sarabande Books, 2005), and Dime Store Erotics (Silverfish Review Press, 1998). She is also the coeditor of Radiant Lyre: Essays on Lyric Poetry (Graywolf Press, 2007). Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review , The Paris Review , and Poetry , among others. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation, and The Ohio Arts Council. Townsend is also the recipient of a 2016 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award for her work as cofounder of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. She is director of the Creative Writing Program at Denison University.