A Fretted Terrain,
Like Mars
110 pages/Perfect bound/ $15
Carol Lynne Knight’s, A Fretted Terrain, Like Mars, is a lush evocation of a woman’s dance through her life — the romantic assignations in hotels and dilapidated houses to the full tango of a love affair in different cities and then the lone reckoning of the body and desire. The moon is the presiding goddess, or is it the phantasmagorical masks of a girl becoming a woman? This book is an unfurled fan — each slat a moment of beauty turning into a moving picture of love and loss. Knight’s images are rich and abundant as she offers up a glimpse of her place in time.
— Barbara Hamby, author of Bird Odyssey
Carol Lynne Knight’s, A Fretted Terrain, Like Mars, is a travelogue of desire bound for Paris, Las Vegas, Savannah, Rome, and back again. Sexual intimacy and spirituality confront mortality head-on. Surely, Eros and Thanatos are both at play in these poems, but Eros gets the upper hand, and Knight’s eye for the indelible detail, her open-hearted approach, her lyricism and lush imagery, make so many of these poems unforgettable.
— James Kimbrell, author of Smote
CHEVY IMPALA
— Nashville
meet me in nashville
where the bar is open late,
the music makes you sigh,
& drinks are two for one.
I’ll be leaning on the polished hood
of a ‘59 chevy impala convertible
parked inside the bar — the hub
of the prowl — & waiting
for a slow song so I can drape
myself on your muscled shoulder
& explore our mutual curves.
after the dance, we can make out
in the impala’s back seat,
& I’ll remember fred & mike,
but never ask the names you might recall
as the disco ball shatters above us.
later, we will run across the parking lot
as rain begins to sputter on cars,
to gutter & pool, & our bucket-seat-gear-shift-
semi-clothed attempts at intimacy
end in tangles of denim & laughter,
& then in conversation that lasts
until the lot empties at 4 a.m. —
the deserted gravel,
the smoke-fed glow
of streetlights tracing
a fretted terrain,
like mars.
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