cover illustration for poet James Cihlar’s first book, Undoing, from Little Pear Press.

the start of the title poem, “Undoing”:

Unfamiliar with the logic of the physical world,
As a kid I did not understand repair.

My mother warned,
If you break that lamp

We can’t replace it, but I couldn’t believe her.
The world can’t be that stingy,

Not the same world of tulips erupting from bulbs,
Moths emerging from cocoons, smooth upholstery

Cradling my cheek in the backseat of my father’s Chevy….