Untitled

Gary Young

First published in Salt Hill 20 (2008).

When Elizabeth had died, Gene told me about two stars observed rotating in tandem. They spun in perfect symmetry, one around the other, but their locked orbits became unstable, and the stars swung out of control. One star was sucked into a black hole, and the other was flung deep into space. I know Gene identified with one of the stars, but I couldn’t begin to imagine which.

Gary Young has been awarded grants from the NEA and the NEH. He’s received a Pushcart Prize, and his book of poems, The Dream of a Moral Life, won the James D. Phelan Award. He is the author of several other collections of poetry including Hands; Days; Braver Deeds, winner the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize; No Other Life, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award; Pleasure; and Even So: New and Selected Poems. His most recent books are That’s What I Thought, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award from Persea Books, and Precious Mirror, translations from the Japanese. In 2009 He received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He teaches creative writing and directs the Cowell Press at UC Santa Cruz.