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reading baudelaire in my backyarD*

for michael burkard

Between first and second years at

Kirkland, I assigned myself a tâche:

read Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Mallarmé,

Lautréamont, Apollinaire, en français.

The woven nylon of a cheap chaise

longue marked the backs of my thighs.

Sipping a can of warm Sprite, I set

my pink English-French dictionnaire

on the clipped herbe verte. My suburb

translated itself in July’s white soleil,

while inside the borders of our house

my father, the fou, wrestled his moods.

* “Reading Baudelaire in My Backyard” was previously published in the anthology Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose By Bright Hill Poets & Writers edited by Bertha Rogers.

Jo Pitkin is the author of four full-length books of poetry—Cradle of the American Circus: Poems from Somers, New York; Commonplace Invasions; Rendering; and the forthcoming Village: Recession. She is also the editor of the anthology Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community.

Founder, Fall 1976; Editor in chief, Fall 1976 to Spring 1978