“Venus Rising: an elegy”
For T.B.S.
Ginkgo tree rustles, drawing me back
To when we lay under streetlamps’ muted glow.
Our breathing slows, measuring in-and-out,
Reclaiming the lost riffraff principality,
Requiem of a generation, frozen into a tulip.
If we never were, you and I,
Just written into being, voiceless,
And grounded to the stars,
Would you have even said hello?
Instead, I’m left with a single question,
Saturated like the August air, humid,
And buckling to the summer storm —
What would have happened if…
About the Poet:
Sean Bugg graduated from the University of Virginia in May 2011. During this time he spent two years as a student in the Department’s Area Program in Poetry Writing under the direction of Lisa Russ Spaar. As part of his final capstone project, he wrote, edited, and compiled a collection of poems entitled Melancholia Proserpine. Librarians of the University will shelve a bound copy and preserve an unbound copy in their archives. Sean’s work has appeared in The Last Romantics and 3.7 Magazine.
