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At the Edge of the City

Beatrice Szymkowiak
downy woodpeckers drum
          morning in our pillows
or are they
          jack hammer
                  muffled calls or
are they
          drilling for insects
                  hidden in rotten house
sidings
      you
          asleep into the nook
                       of my arm
rest your ear
Madison Poet Laureate, Madison Public Library Poet-in-Residence
Why I chose this poem: 

Beatrice Szymkowiak is a French-American writer. She is the author of the chapbook RED ZONE (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and was the winner of the 2017 Omnidawn Single Poem Broadside Contest. Her poems have also appeared in several poetry magazines. Exploratory and experimental, her poetry investigates the new environmental trajectory of the Anthropocene. She currently teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she is pursuing her PhD in Creative Writing.

Poem source: 

Through This Door: Wisconsin in Poems

Through This Door