N.C. Poem in Your Pocket—David Rigsbee

David Rigsbee has published 15 books and chapbooks, including Invited Guest: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Southern Poetry (University of Virginia Press, 2001), selected as a notable university press book by the American Library Association and The Association of American University Professors, and featured on C-Span’s Booknotes. His work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Black Warrior Review, The Carolina Quarterly, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, The New Yorker and the Ohio Review, among others.  He is currently contributing editor and book reviewer for The Cortland Review.  His chapbook The Pilot House is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press.  Rigsbee lives in Raleigh.

A Life Preserver

He watches the light move in and out
behind the evening clouds and listens
to the wild duck’s long, sad cadence,
interrupted by crows.  He senses
the still air is indifferent
to these rituals.  For all that,
he knows the connections there
are the nodes of moments
already deep in the braid
of a rope, coiled and put
in a public place under lock and key,
a life preserver, in case of emergency.

—David Rigsbee

(From The Pilot House (poems) Black Lawrence Press, to be published in the fall.)