The Sunday Poet: Lori Desrosiers

The Sunday Poet:  Lori Desrosiers

Sofia’s Thumb

Odd how pain rises
in the nerves, wakes
the brain at night.

Muscles grip
cleave to the bone.
In daylight, the body

twists, contorts
stone to the touch.
Doctor signs a pad

sends you driving, hunched over
up a flight of stairs
holding the rail.

With her thumb
Sofia pushes
starts slow, then it hurts.

Sometimes you scream, swear
but as quickly as it came,
release.

Freed from bone’s tug
nerves relax
muscles and mind

exhale a long-held,
long-awaited
breath.

Lori Desrosiers’ debut full-length book of poems, The Philosopher’s Daughter was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013. A second book is due out in 2016. A chapbook, Inner Sky is from Glass Lyre Press. Her poems have appeared in New Millenium Review(contest finalist), Contemporary American Voices, Best Indie Lit New England, String Poet, Blue Fifth Review, Pirene’s Fountain, The New Verse News, The Mom Egg, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish-American Poetry and many other journals and anthologies. She won the Greater Brockton Poets Award for New England Poets award for her poem “That Pomegranate Shine” in 2010, judged by X.J. Kennedy and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2015. She is Editor-in-Chief of Naugatuck River Review, a journal of narrative poetry and serves as an editor for several other publications. She teaches Literature and Composition at Westfield State University and Poetry in the Interdisciplinary Studies program for the Lesley University M.F.A. graduate program. She has read her poetry and taught workshops at numerous colleges and conferences. She holds a M.F.A. from New England College and a M.Ed. from Lesley University. Her website is http://loridesrosierspoetry.com.