there is purple in every shadow

but bile is bitter green
as bittergreen

as if existence mattered
or went on beyond

the confines of
this corporal redness

this skin-bag of blood,
this pulsing, impossible heart.

back to issue

Judith R. Robinson is an editor, teacher, fiction writer and poet. A 1980 summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, she is listed in the Directory of American Poets and Writers. She has published 100+ poems, four poetry collections, one fiction collection, and edited or co-edited eleven poetry collections. She teaches at Osher at Carnegie Mellon University.