{"id":3542,"date":"2021-09-23T08:33:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T12:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/?p=3542"},"modified":"2021-09-23T08:33:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T12:33:54","slug":"a-poem-for-a-thursday-148","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/23\/a-poem-for-a-thursday-148\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for a Thursday #148"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Ilnur Kalimullin<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Mary Karr is an American poet and memoirist. Her memoir, The Liar’s Club<\/em>, was a bestseller for over a year and was named one of the year’s best books. Karr has published five volumes of poetry and has won many prizes. Her poetry is frequently described as unsentimental and unsparing and is sometimes autobiographical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The dream we had was Paris, and it was the sweetest lie\nI ever heard. Grace<\/em>, you said, and there were swans\nfeeding on bread we tossed from a taxi window. Lilac,<\/em>\nand from the stirrup of your hands, I balanced to tear off\nbranches. Angel,<\/em> and we slung cameras around our necks\nlike tourists in heaven who can only love\nfrom a distance. This is a snapshot of you\ntaking a snapshot of me taking a snapshot.\nThis is Minneapolis, where we breathe snow\nin the dark bubble of the car,\nwhere all that remains of Lilac<\/em>\nis the fear of falling,\nwhich is the first truth.\n\nLast night I fell asleep with my face on the typewriter.\nThe keys marked my cheek.\nSo at dawn I stood at the mirror\nreading myself like a page of braille.\nI don't know who you are or how we once dreamt\nof Paris. I watched the perfume-maker squash\na thousand blossoms into a tiny vial. I imagine\nyour coins still plunk on his glass counter: Grace, Lilac,\nAngel, we paid dearly. I rushed at swans with arms wide\nuntil they rose in one graceful heap,\nlike the handkerchief I lift as you drive away,\na snowflake I dot behind my ear.\nThis is a snapshot washed black by the airport x-ray.\nIt waves goodby.\n\nThe Last Paris Poem\nMary Karr<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mary Karr is an American poet and memoirist. Her memoir, The Liar’s Club, was a bestseller for over a year and was named one of the year’s best books. Karr has published five volumes of poetry and has won many prizes. Her poetry is frequently described as unsentimental and unsparing and is sometimes autobiographical. The dream we had was Paris, and it was the sweetest lie I ever heard. Grace, you said, and there were swans feeding on bread we tossed from a taxi window. Lilac, and from the stirrup of your hands, I balanced to tear off branches. Angel, and we slung cameras around our necks like tourists in heaven who can only love from a distance. This is a snapshot of you taking a snapshot of me taking a snapshot. This is Minneapolis, where we breathe snow in the dark bubble of the car, where all that remains of Lilac is the fear of falling, which is the first truth. Last night I fell asleep with my face on the typewriter. The keys marked my cheek. So at dawn I stood at the mirror reading myself like a page of braille. I don’t know who you are or how we once dreamt of Paris. I watched the perfume-maker squash a thousand blossoms into a tiny vial. I imagine your coins still plunk on his glass counter: Grace, Lilac, Angel, we paid dearly. I rushed at swans with arms wide until they rose in one graceful heap, like the handkerchief I lift as you drive away, a snowflake I dot behind my ear. This is a snapshot washed black by the airport x-ray. It waves goodby. The Last Paris Poem Mary Karr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem-for-a-thursday"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3544,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3542\/revisions\/3544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}