Farewell to the Starlight in Whiskey

In Farewell to the Starlight in Whiskey Barton Sutter explores the wilderness along the Canadian border, sings about love in midlife, meditates on the roots of war, attacks political leaders, recounts the peculiar heroics of an epileptic Vietnam vet, writes a "personal" ad in the voice of a chickadee, and talks to a dead jackpine. A deft practitioner of meter and rhyme, Sutter is a fireside storyteller who makes the language thump and sing.

Sweet Jesus

I found you, my lush, curvaceous savior,
Nailed to the old rugged cross of your life
As if cursed, caught, condemned to stay there.
Sweet Jesus with breasts and black hair,
I took you down, dressed your wounds,
Woke you from you midlife swoon,
And made you my unlawful wife.
You drank the gall of my despair
But swore there was another way.
Our bodies would be the wine and bread
On which we fed.
We came alive there,
Nourished by grief, by tears and saliva.
And, lo, the stone of sorrow was rolled away;
Together, we rose from the dead.

© BOA Editions, Ltd 2004

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Price: $14.95