Daniel Bourne
A Mere Bauble
Will you please take this package from me?
Will you hold it up and study
it like a scientist with a test tube, a cat
licking a mouse? Will you write me
from another country, the screech
of taxis and gunshots? Is it you
who was always the most in danger? Do you
count the days or just carry
them hidden in your fists? Will you
please accept this little bauble from me?
My name written on the paper
when you burn the paper in a fire?
Bio
Daniel Bourne's books include The Household Gods, Where No One Spoke the Language, and Talking Back to the Exterminator, forthcoming from Regal House as the 2022 recipient of its Terry J. Cox Poetry Award. His poems have also appeared in Guernica, Conduit, APR, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Since 1980, he has also lived in Poland several times, including 1985-87 on a Fulbright for the translation of younger Polish poets and, most recently, in 2018 and 2019. His translations appear in many literary journals, and a book of his translations of Polish Poet Bronisław Maj, The Extinction of the Holy City, is forthcoming from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press.