It’s been way too long since I sat on a handrail in an open stairwell and let gravity help me descend to the next level, arms and legs extended for perilous balance as I surf a frozen wave, pants buffng the banister while I glide over the steps my feet don’t have to take to get down to the bottom where I leap off, a kid grinning at his shortcut, his speed, his nonchalant ability to make his body do exactly what he wants: execute this flying fall then stick the landing and walk off like nothing unlikely just happened.
has published sixteen books, including eleven collections of poetry, most recently We Were Once Here (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2017). His second book of prose, AppointedRounds: Essays, came out from Mercer University Press earlier this year. New poems and essays have appeared or will soon in Hudson Review, Southern Review, Appalachian Journal, Southern Cultures, and Best Creative Nonfiction of the South, Volume II: North Carolina (Texas Review Press, 2017). He has taught in the creative writing program at UNC–Chapel Hill since 1990.
