Laurie Byro’s short stories and poetry draw on myth, fairytale and her experiences of foreign places in the years she worked as a travel agent. Published widely in literary journals such as Autumn Sky Poetry, Loch Raven Review, and Stirring, her work has been featured on The Guardian’s online workshop and has placed favorably in the Interboard Poetry Competitions. Laurie is head of circulation at a library in New Jersey where she facilitates a poetry circle.
I have fallen in love with winter, / with the day that ends at 3:45 in the afternoon. // with the man striding along the path grasping / a pink plastic bag that glows incandescent / although it only contains dish soap / and the cat food he carries home after work …
...you wonder again about the soul, / Where it hides, where it ventures. / There's always one you have to bring to oblivion...
I wanted to be gray-faced / and hated by the Yankees / in the suburbs past Carleton.
Once he’d made the long, impetuous trip, / once we were there, evening air billowing my skirt / over the Pacific, surf sweeping like brushes over drums, / I knew we’d marry.
I lived by a river with tides unresolved / Under the house a sewer under a wooden board it ran / Sometimes a tapping sometimes a hum in the night like a motor
and I dream of a young woman from Prague / standing beside a red motorcycle as if so much / depended upon it...
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