Kathy Fagan


Wedding Picture of My Parents


Where am I in the faces
I found & lost myself in
Again & again. In the face
Of his watch, her corona
Of curls. In the lilies
Of the valley pinned
To his lapel. In the rhyme
Of her veil & the crystal
They hold to their lips
To drink from with their soft
Smiling mouths, hands
Parallel, fingers nearly
Twined, as in a game
Of church & steeple. Who
I was then is who
They are now: not
The people but the door.

Kathy Fagan’s sixth poetry collection, winner of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Prize, is Bad Hobby (Milkweed Editions, 2022), available in print and audio. Sycamore (Milkweed, 2017) was a finalist for the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Award. A 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, she teaches poetry at The Ohio State University, where she co-founded the MFA Program and co-edits The Journal/OSU Press Wheeler Poetry Prize Series.

ISSN 2472-338X
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