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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

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