Michael T. Young has published two collections of poetry: Because the Wind Has Question and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a 2007 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and received a 2008 William Stafford Award. He was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and received the Chaffin Poetry Award for 2005. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Barrow Street, Broken Plate, The Loch Raven Review, The Same, and many other journals. His work is also in the anthologies Phoenix Rising and Chance of a Ghost. He currently live with his wife and two children in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Summer 2010
Table of Contents - Vol. VI, No. 2
Michael T. Young
I bite into my apple sucking its bittersweet meat,
its conflicting crunch and burst, and I think
how I envy those who can live by their obsession,
like Glenn Gould humming into the microphone,
lingering over each note of the Goldberg Variations
as though this one he now plays
is the only thing in the world, pure and bursting,
while I sit by a window beyond which is a tapestry
of green-brown leaf and limb that suddenly explodes
with a streak of yellow wings — two birds? two butterflies?
I run to the window to catch a glimpse more,
but don’t, and turn back, resigned to my apple,
biting again into its flesh, savoring the sweetness,
and savoring the bitterness that bites back.
© Michael T. Young
