Last week on the Seattle Poetry Chain, John Marshall wrote about the proper way to say "motherfucker." This week, he's chosen a poet I'm glad to see on the Poetry Chain. Here's what John Marshall has to say about Kary Wayson:

I've known Kary Wayson's poetry for years, and seen her read several times over those years. She's a live-wire, a living wire, and all art shows best when there's the hum of a living wire attached. Her poems use the old tools — rhyme and meter — to move snappily around in our human quarters. Rage, joy, love, sadness, sex & death are given a charge in her lines. Sparks, I tell you— I've read them on the page and heard and seen them when she reads. The gone-but-unforgotten folks at LitRag published her fine chapbook, "Dog & Me," some years ago. Now she's gone and won the Journal Award from Ohio State University Press. Her first full-length collection, American Husband, will be published early next year. It's a pleasure to step aside and let Kary Wayson's work crackle for a week in the SLOG.

Here is Kary Wayson's poem:

The Four Corners of Fifth & Lenora

I timed my arrival to make an X.
At the intersection you were on the other side.
I smiled like the city bus between us.
A sick, fluorescent smile.
In that moment my coat blew open:
half-slip hiked around my waist,
my hair I hoped a wave of grain. This
is not a weekend feeling.
I am holding my heart against my chest.
In the city of just me you made me like a guess.
I gave you how many tries.

Many thanks to John Marshall, and especially thanks to Kary Wayson for the lovely poem. Tune in next Friday at noon to see who she chooses for the next poet on the Seattle Poetry Chain.