Thunderbird

"In lines that remind me of the way William Carlos Williams insisted that only the imagination gives us access to reality, Lasky''s poems evoke a practice of living, as bloody and awful and lovely as living can ever be."—Julia Bloch, Bitch

"The beautiful thing about Lasky, in all her work, but particularly here, is her ability to create that same sense of earnestness, the sense that she is telling you a secret."—InDigest Magazine, InDigest Picks

Go, brave and gentle reader, with Dorothea Lasky to the "purple motel / where the bird lives." Go with her, as you have willingly gone down the dark passages before, with her bare-faced poems for guidance. Thunderbird''s controlled rage plunges into the black interior armed with nothing but guts and Lasky''s own fiery heart to light the way.

Baby of air
You rose into the mystical
Side of things
You could no longer live with us
We put you in a little home
Where they shut and locked the door
And at night
You blew out
And went wandering . . .

Dorothea Lasky is also the author of Black Life and AWE, both from Wave Books. She lives in New York.