Poetry – Issue 3 | February 2009
Two Poems by Stephen Bunch
Preparing to Leave
I’ll need a name and a map
before I can go.
The rest I can invent.
The name should be as natural
as an old scar, the map too,
at first, topographical, but later
political, historical if I get lost,
and it should fold to fit unnoticed
inside any story I might tell.
And when I board an airplane
or bus, or a van pulls over
for my outstretched thumb,
I’ll need to forget
the faces of where I’ve been,
forget how long I’ve been gone.
About the author
Stephen Bunch recently received the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry from the Lawrence Arts Center in Kansas. Poems can be found in Autumn Sky Poetry, The Externalist, and Fickle Muses. From 1978 to 1988, Stephen edited and published Tellus, a little magazine that featured work by Edward Dorn, Jane Hirshfield, Denise Low, Paul Metcalf, and Edward Sanders. Occasionally, Stephen pulls up his long-stemmed Kansas roots, and finds himself in Taos or Chicago.
Next in Poetry: Salad Burial
Previously in Poetry: Two Poems by David Landrum
