Route 7 Review
Issue # 2015
Tim Suermondt
THE PULL OF TELENOVELAS
How can we not be moved
when the blonde duena says
“Oh Roberto, you and I
cannot be dull and sad.”
And though most of the characters
look more like models
than, say, hard working rancheros—
we like them still
and want to follow their adventures.
The couple escapes from danger,
the couple kisses by the fountain—
and the cameras pan to Mexico City,
its lights ablaze, and because
there is so much tragedy so many
people are dancing in the streets
to life and justice, and the sky
crisscrossed by the shadows of birds.
Tim Suermondt is the author of two full-length collections of poems: TRYING TO HELP THE ELEPHANT MAN DANCE (The Backwaters Press, 2007) and JUST BEAUTIFUL (New York Quarterly Books, 2010.) He has poems published and forthcoming in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Blackbird, Able Muse, Prairie Schooner, PANK, Bellevue Literary Review, Plume Poetry Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, Mudlark, december magazine, Ploughshares, and Stand Magazine in England. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong