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Umbrella.

By Myra Sklarew.

++++++++++++For Robert Bly.

Letting fear
rise up in me
An erection
breaking through
the umbrella

Fear is frontal
tearing into the head
at night
like an animal
gone wild

It rides the runway
of flesh
Cells quicken
and wait on their haunches
behind all these doors

.


Myra Sklarew is emerita professor of literature in the writing program at American University and a former (1987-1991) president of the Yaddo community.  She is the author of Harmless and five more collections of poetry. Her review for the Fortnightly of Robert Bly’s Reaching Out to the World is here.

Umbrella © 1972 Myra Sklarew and republished with permission. This work is one of a series of excerpts from literary and art journals not otherwise available online. This poem appeared for the first time in The Little Magazine (London) in 1972.

The Little Magazine, edited by Denis Boyles, published work by Ann Lauterbach, Anthony Howell, William Stafford, Robert Coover, Marilyn Hacker, Stephen Wiest, Michelene (Victor) Wandor, Bernard Saint, Wayne Markert, and many others. Selected works are being republished at irregular intervals in the Fortnightly Review‘s New Series.