Sally Bliumis-Dunn teaches Modern Poetry and Creative Writing at Manhattanville College.
In 2002, she was a finalist for the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize. Her poems have been published in The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry London, and the NYT, among others. In 2008, she was asked to read in the Love Poems program at the Library of Congress. She lives in Armonk, New York with her husband, John. They share four children, Ben, Angie, Kaitlin and Fiona. Her books are Talking Underwater (2007) and Second Skin (2010), both from Wind Publications.
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Conversation
Like sailing at night—
buoys, long sticks of lobster traps
suddenly at the bow,
only a pewter path
of moon on water;
harder still
when the moon
slides into a pocket of cloud,
wind slams shouts
back down our throats—
in this dark, no soothing
voice, no quiet thoughts,
even when the winds
finally calm,
both of us on watch.
Mechanics
When the engine light
flashes, two days after
an oil change, I want
to trust him.
After all, there was
that time
he fixed the headlamp,
no charge.
His garage from my
office window—
plain cement building,
and in the driveway,
a couple of oil-stained
plastic chairs.
I want to trust him,
but catch myself
in his office mirror—
that old expression,
like a door always
almost closed.
He says it’s the coil—
something wound,
come loose and leaking inside
the engine’s metallic husk.
Car on the hydraulic lift,
he points, I nod
at the tubular dark.
Coil of fern, slinky,
some faulty clock spring
inside me, what do I know
of the engine’s heart?