Don’t blame the wisteria for setting off a feeling like freedom a feeling like joy.

We watched the people walking in the open square—

one of them was a specialist in killing, fear was the way of others.

I’ve seen the most extraordinary thing about people, their faces.

Remember the trees in springtime, we ate candy beneath them,

shouts from the playground, static of yellowjackets, your fresh new haircut.

Here’s a tweeted canto, some words for the end of the world—

for when I am forever nothing, and you are

(and you and you).

What we were for such a brief.

(M with the laundry, the dog at his bowl, the boys going at it out back.)

O you who want to slaughter us, we’ll be dead soon enough what’s the rush

and this our only world.

Now bring me a souvenir from the desecrated city,

something tender, something that might bloom.

Notes

NOTES

pages 15–16: The last three lines draw from Aurelien Breeden and Lilia Blaise’s “Frenchman Plotting ‘Imminent’ Attack Is Charged with Terrorism,” New York Times, March 30, 2016.

page 38: The italicized lines are from In Case of Emergency: Preparing for an Imminent Missile Threat (Guam’s Joint Information Center Fact Sheet).

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deborah Landau is the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tin House, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2016 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches in and directs the creative writing program at New York University and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Also by Deborah Landau

Also by Deborah Landau

The Uses of the Body

The Last Usable Hour

Orchidelirium

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the editors of the following publications, in which versions of poems from this col-lection originally appeared: Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Freeman’s, Green Mountains Review, The Literary Review, The New Yorker, and Poetry.

“there were real officers in the streets” first appeared in Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now (Knopf).

I am grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for providing invaluable support during the writing of this book.

Warmest thanks to Catherine Barnett, Alex Dimitrov, John Freeman, Peter Nickowitz, Meghan O’Rourke, Michael Wiegers, and Matthew Zapruder. Much gratitude always to everyone at Copper Canyon Press. And to Mark, my love.

The Chinese character for poetry is made up of two parts: “word” and “temple.” It also serves as pressmark for Copper Canyon Press.

Poetry is vital to language and living. Since 1972, Copper Canyon Press has published extraordinary poetry from around the world to engage the imaginations and intellects of readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, students, and donors.

Lannan Literary Selections 2019

For two decades Lannan Foundation has supported the publication and distribution of exceptional literary works. Copper Canyon Press gratefully acknowledges their support.

LANNAN LITERARY SELECTIONS 2019

Jericho Brown, The Tradition