Anticipation leans into the fat of satisfaction:
steal the thrill of waiting, visualizing
the arrival, the way a dream maps its own
geography and I have barely begun the journey.
Take me with you when you fall into
a dream: I am crossing a frail bridge for one
and you hold out your hand on the bank
of a precipice: fear slopes into hope
and I rush through towards your promise
with the urgency of a deadline,
the compulsion of a reward, the affirmation
of presence. Please learn to appease
the wrath of expectations: you have surpassed
every measure of belief, have excelled
the power of prayer, have given me more
than inspiration, more than dance, more.
/////
Read more of Lucia Cherciu’s poems and reviews here on Lightwood. Scroll down and enter her name on our Search link. Her book of poetry, “Immigrant Prodigal Daughter,” has been reviewed here.
Lucia Cherciu is the author of six books of poetry, including Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, forthcoming 2023), Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), which received the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2016), Lalele din Paradis / Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon, 2017), Altoiul Râsului / Grafted Laughter (Editura Brumar, 2010), and Lepădarea de Limbă / The Abandonment of Language (Editura Vinea, 2009). Her work was nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and three times for Best of the Net and has appeared in numerous publications. She received her Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with the dissertation titled “Luddicrous ‘Scribbling Women’: The Politics of Laughter and Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers.” Cherciu is a Professor of English at SUNY / Dutchess Community College and served as the 2021-2022 Dutchess County, New York poet laureate. Her web page is http://luciacherciu.webs.com.
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