ABOUT CYRA S. DUMITRU

Cyra S. Dumitru was born in The Hague, Holland and raised in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cincinnati, Ohio. She received degrees in English from Indiana University in Bllomington, Indiana, in 1979 and the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1995. Her professional life includes residencies as a Poet-in-the-Schools as well as years of medical writing in Norfolk, Virginia, and San Antonio, Texas. A passionate swimmer, she currently works as a poet, author of memoir, and meditative essay. She and her husband have two children, three cats and six acres of hilly land which they share with an abundance of Texas wildlife.

What the Body Knows
Cyra Dumitru

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ISBN: 1-877603-76-7

"Thick with a life all their own," these poems are as "well-schooled in touch" as the title of Cyra S. Dumitru's first collection suggests. What the Body Knows speaks from the "long lift" of painful memory, yet over and over it brings "hope to warm its wet wings by your side."

—Wendy Barker

Dream of the Missing Children

Breathing was difficult at first.
A few minutes submerged and I was rocketing
to the surface to inhale
before plunging back into waves.

Each time I dove more deeply until breathing
was easy and I found the grade school empty,
perfectly furnished at the bottom of the ocean:
small, wooden desks, bright drawings
on the walls, sea anemones waving in corners.

As I stepped into each classroom,
the recent breath of children drifted
through the open window, outlines of
small hands faded. A pencil floated
off a desk, a white sweater sank from a chair.

Perhaps the children were at recess
chasing each other along the shoreline,
diving into the waves when they needed air.
Living on land takes time.

Copyright © Pecan Grove Press,
1997-2003
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