Kathryn Petruccelli – poet, writer, teacher, performer

  • Read my new short fiction piece, “The Difference,” in Tiny Molecules

    Looking for Meteor Showers

    Above us, a fingernail of moon hooked on black cloth,
              Perseids nowhere in sight. We drive the coast north to Monterey.

    Lights of the southbound cars—flared nostrils—roll through us,
              cloistered as we are in the small Chevy rental.

    Signs warning of rough roads fill our vision, then
              are gone again. We harvest what we can from the night:

    town names we’re suddenly reminded of, stories from two decades back
              wandering into conversation: collecting sand dollars

    at Morro Bay, freezing on a June camping trip to San Simeon, chasing lizards
              through cactus at the San Miguel mission. The labor of memory

    halting, gray road a razor strap we travel to sharpen it. But everyone
              knows it’s dangerous to take your eyes from the path at this speed.

    Why do we risk it? What could it be, really, that memory gives us? That cloud-curtain
              drifting in and out of who we were. Faulty, hiccupped, thread-bare.

    Tonight, I’d like to catch a glimpse of the falling light, if only to say
              I’ve seen it—seemingly too much to ask. We have just earthbound tales.

    Perseus was guided to the Gorgon by her reflection, the real thing fatal.
              Maybe that’s why we need to lace our present with our past, chew

    bitter-sweet fruit of what we’ve known—the Now too high a wattage,
              straight shot that presses down hard. Reminiscing is softer,

    a weaving, flouncy and generous, the dead laughing once again.
              The road in front of us follows coastline, curving left, then right.

    (River Heron Review, 8.2)

    Contact me at montereyboundATgmailDOTcom.

    View Mass Poetry’s poetry & protest video collage where I was one of 16 featured poets from across the state to read Amanda Gorman’s “In This Place (An American Lyric)”  for National Poetry Month 2020. 


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    Read me at Substack: @askthepoet where you can submit a life or writing question – no subscription necessary!