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K.E. DUFFIN

K.E. Duffin’s poetry has appeared in Agenda, Agni, The Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review, The Moth, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prairie Schooner, Scintilla, The Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, The SHOp, Thrush, Verse, and other journals. King Vulture, a book of poems, was published by the University of Arkansas Press.

      Kaleidoscope

My Sainte-Chapelle of bits and shards,

how easily you make of everything, even the sordid,

a pattern, suggesting that all can be ordered:

from a distant star, each blot and blur jarred,

tumbled and clicked into place

within a circular window’s embrace.

Maybe even our nemesis, decay,

can be seen from afar this way,

a split-second transit toward spangled

mathematical perfection, thrillingly angled.

This aloof solace

of being startled to trace

new, unguessed-at gems

again and again—

is it the merest hint

of what awaits beyond the sun’s glint?

©2015 K.E. Duffin

Author Links

King Vulture at University of Arkansas Press

Poem by K.E. Duffin in Thrush

Poem by K.E. Duffin at Poets.org