The Loving Detail of the Living & the Dead

"Unforgettable." --Michael Ondaatje

These rhythmic poems negotiate the collisions between past, present, and future--and outline a universal mythology of the self. Exploring the overlapping arrangements of time and memory, life and death, Sikelianos skillfully draws lines from everyday minutiae towards an interior world where we are "carrying our own living ghost inside." "Comes to me"

the future comes to me

with a horrifying screech

then it comes to me softly

like a weeping cloud

and it comes to me like

a fish, glass-eyed, flopping

and it comes to erotically

meanly& sharp

it comes to me cashed out rolling

electronically

in my future life I was

a cowboy, killed

in a bar fight

a flamingo in snow

Eleni Sikelianos is the author of six books of poetry, including The California Poem, a Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year. She directs the University of Denver's Creative Writing program.