Poem of the Week: Gretchen Primack

                               

The Absence of Unnecessary Hurting  

    

This is the press of the earth. One star hanging

there, honking like a goose. The lake

a smudge of black juice, the hill a draped

pancake. Frogs singing, sharp

and gutty.

Night! Clean air, clear water, five

baby mink in a pile, snoring.

Overwhelm can be dug from sludge

below dock, on either side fruits slung

over branches, glued to their seeds.

Here in the slurry live the things

I consider, here in the hills. What do people

think of? What do they think of me

in my carings?

Ripples lunch on each other, heavenly

Body lights flicker, too cool for moths.

I don't want to hurt things.

The fine brown eye of an animal,

the broad slick leaf of a wing.

I'd like to be gentle here.

I want to be worthy of you, lovely

ground, bury my face in your tired

broken bread.

-Gretchen Primack 

Used by permission.  

From Kind (Post Traumatic Press 2013)

Gretchen Primack's poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, FIELD, Antioch Review, Ploughshares, and other journals. She's the author of two poetry collections, Kind (Post-Traumatic Press 2013) and the forthcoming Doris' Red Spaces (Mayapple 2014), and a chapbook, The Slow Creaking of Planets (Finishing Line 2007).

Primack has worked as a union organizer, working women's advocate, and prison educator. Also an advocate for non-human animals, she co-wrote The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals (Penguin Avery 2012) with Jenny Brown.  She lives in Hurley, NY. 

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