The Sunday Poet: Michael Todd Steffen

Michael Todd Steffen curates the Hastings Room Reading Series in Cambridge. His poetry and articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, Connecticut Review, Poem (HLA), ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Ibbetson Street, Taos Journal and in the window of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop. His first book Partner, Orchard, Day Moon was published in April of 2014 by Cervena Barva Press edited by Gloria Mindock. He will be reading at the Cambridge Public Library on Wednesday January 27th with Mary Buchinger and Jennifer Tseng, at 6:30 pm in the library main lecture hall.

Provolone

Less than ham and man’s endless

Cures and smokes to make the perishable

Last, elusively savory little smile

Of cheese, couched between the crust’s

Formal al dente and the meat

The stomach craves, like the nobles

In an overrun nation, you mean

With texture and stealth resistance

To the devouring, supper time,

Temperance, signed with singularity

That stood, and with a final silence,

That errant vowel on which won’t pounce

My English, which Italians pronounce.