American Life in Poetry

Julie Suk is a North Carolinian who, like all good writers, has taught herself to pay attention to what’s happening right under her nose. Here’s a good example of her poetry.

Loving the Hands

I could make a wardrobe

with tufts of wool

caught on thistle and bracken.

Lost – the scraps

I might have woven whole cloth.

Come watch, the man says,

shearing sheep

with the precision of long practice,

fleece, removed all of a piece,

rolled in a neat bundle.

I’ve been so clumsy

with people who’ve loved me.

Straddling a ewe,

the man props its head on his foot,

leans down with clippers,

each pass across the coat a caress.

His dogs, lying nearby,

tremble at every move – as I do,

loving the hands that have learned

to gentle the life beneath them.