when a poet dies
it’s not every day that a poet dies,
last words tossed with scattered change
inside the glove compartment, frozen
under crusty soles and muddy tracks
and everywhere the same panic screams
its FUCK DID YOU DO’s and His name
wasted on a youthful killer’s lips // it’s not
every day that a poet dies in this fragile
country and is reborn in the quiet peace
of one last lingering silence. bare hands
gripping barbed fences, fear shifting gears,
spit and care and tenderness and blood
crushed by the same dirty old boot // it’s not
every day that a poet dies and the wind
blows away a paler sun while our hearts
give out a slightly shorter breath.
How it began
It didn’t begin with a gun
or a zip tie. It didn’t begin
with the controlled burn
that ate at the margins
of our shared forest
nor with the stone-faced lies
hanging from gilded ledges
like demented gargoyles
nor with the grooves of a boot
stamped on the inside of your
skull. It began softly, the day
you first hesitated in typing
a word in a grant application
and softened its sharp edges
before hitting the send button.
It began the very second
you shrank your voice
down to a
whisper.
Valentina Fulginiti is a bilingual writer, scholar and educator currently based in Ithaca, NY. A graduate of the Universities of Toronto and Bologna (Italy), she is a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University. Her debut novel, "Nessuna di queste vite mi appartiene" (ExCogita 2025) won the Bianciardi Prize for best unpublished manuscript in 2024 Her English-language poetry appeared in The Sacramento Literary Review, Panoplyzine, Sky Island Journal and elsewhere. She also serves as a reader of poetry for Wildscape Literary Journal.
January House Literary Journal 
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