International Poetry Circle with Lloyd Schwartz and Tara Skurtu
Channel: Tara Skurtu
Date: 2020-04-04

Welcome to International Poetry Circle: Poets and poetry lovers around the world reading poems to help us all feel more connected, supported, and hopeful while in quarantine and social distancing during the pandemic. 

In this video, I, Tara Skurtu, in Bucharest, Romania, am with poet, music critic, and Somerville Poet Laureate Lloyd Schwartz at his home in MA. Lloyd reads my poem "Morning Love Poem" from The Amoeba Game, and I read Lloyd's poem "Crossword" from his newest collection Little Kisses. (Poems below.)

CROSSWORD (by Lloyd Schwartz, from Little Kisses)
For David 

You’re doing a crossword.
I'm working on a puzzle.
Do you love me enough?
What's the missing word?
Do I love you enough?
Where’s the missing piece?
Yesterday I was cross with you.
You weren’t paying enough attention.
You were cross with me.
I wasn’t paying enough attention.
Our words crossed.
Where are the missing pieces?
What are the missing words?
Yet last night we fit together like words in a crossword.
Pieces of a puzzle.

MORNING LOVE POEM (by Tara Skurtu, from The Amoeba Game)

Dreamt last night I fed you, unknowingly, 
something you were allergic to. 

And you were gone, like that. 

You don’t have even a single allergy, 
but still. The dream cracked. Cars nose-dived 

off snow banks into side streets. Sometimes 
dreams slip poison, make the living

dead then alive again, twirling
in an unfamiliar room.

It’s hard to say "I need you" enough.

Today I did. Walked into your morning
shower fully clothed. All the moments 

we stop ourselves just because we might 
feel embarrassed or impractical, or get wet.