for Ativan’s airless latch, and there’s no grace
quite like his Grace who accords each urge
its place, then hastens through good nights:
bedded, celestially unshaken, he’s shirred
all weight, the drapes of consciousness closed,
doubts chased, words left unstirred. Hippo supposed
chastity, continence, should come—but not yet.
Not young, I’m still in heat. Forget the sleep
of sheep beneath southering flocks of geese,
the drug’s sweet release from grief, hollow clouds
settling down, softening the sheets. I’ll mete
time grooming, cleaning teeth: even without,
some nights I sleep. Come uncoupled, complete.
Poem by John Hennessy
AWARDS AND ACCOLADES
- Transatlantic Review Award in Fiction from the Henfield Foundation
- 2007-2008 Resident Fellowship in Poetry at the Amy Clampitt House
- Recipient of the 2012 Elizabeth Matchett Stover Memorial Award for Poetry from Southwest Review.
Hennessy is the author of two collections of poems, Bridge and Tunnel and Coney Island Pilgrims. He has published fiction, poetry, and a variety of literary and critical essays in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2013, The Believer, Harvard Review, The Huffington Post, The New Republic, Poetry, The Sewanee Review, Southwest Review, The Yale Review, What’s Your Exit? A Literary Detour Through New Jersey, and Best New Poets 2005. Hennessy is a contributing editor to Fulcrum: an annual of poetry and aesthetics, and he is the poetry editor of The Common, a new magazine based at Amherst College’s Frost Library. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Cowboys and effigies 