IF IN THIS SLEEP
                                                                         -Adrienne Rich:  Cento
 
                                                If in this sleep I speak
                                                Such a composition has nothing to do with eternity.
                                                I call you from another planet.
                                                Life and death now the choices.
                                                None of us can explain to anyone
                                                How life and death take one another’s hands
                                                Small, starlike clasped
                                                Inching towards life.
 
                                                Are these words, these whispers, conversations
                                                Where language floats and spins?
                                                I don’t know. I’m wondering.
 
                                                I choose to love — this time for once
                                                Leaving myself outside.
                                                I want to call this life:
                                                We move into and come to Love.
 
                                                Collection:  The Dream of A Common Language

​Kathleen Gunton lives in Orange CA. She believes one art feeds another—and her poetry and photography often appear in the same journal. She holds a degree in English from CSULB where she won the
Professor Foote Award for writing. Nominated numerous times for the Pushcart, her poems have recently appeared in Rhino, Perceptions, Rock & Sling, California Quarterly, Off The Coast, and Rockhurst Review. Her book SomethingUntamed  was published in 2000 and since then her poems have appeared in various anthologies including: A Ritual To Read Together and Monkscript Two Surprising Saints.
While completing her collection of cento poems, she posts to her blog.

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