Christina Pugh Poems

Closer to a bell than a bird,
that clapper ringing
the clear name
of its inventor:
...

April makes no difference
to the Lavalle cork tree
imported from central Japan;
...

And at the picnic table under the ancient elms,
one of my parents turned to me and said:
“We hope you end up here,”
where the shade relieves the light, where we sit
...

They are white planets in a galaxy, these wheels
of cheese—before the fungi knobble the skin, cobble
some resistance in the rind. Deep in the cool
caves of Auvergne, a nun sets the circles on shelves
...

Must we cultivate our kindness? Can we
book a fellow-feeling for the sake of the fellow,
not the Ghost? Last night, for example, the whitehaired
girl told us singing was like praying; and that
...