DC Poets: Robert Giron

Drip, Drip

First, a fleeting desire to ignore

the cooler weather like dishes

that don’t dry on the kitchen

counter after a long night.

Next, a fading urge to step

outside and run your finger

across the dew on the

windshield, wanting,

needing confirmation that

you’re coherent enough to

get through another ashen day,

when not even magpies

chirp or flutter about in the

murky birdbath.

Then, an unrelenting pain

hits the center core, burning

through sinew, tissue

ruffled like vintage

silk without shape.

Finally, a resolve to

breathe deeply,

not your last.

Robert L. Giron established Gival Press, the award-winning independent literary press in 1998, which has published over 65 titles of fiction and poetry by both emerging and established authors. He is also the editor of the ejournal ArLiJo, editor-in-chief of The Sligo Journal, and associate editor of Potomac Review. He has written five collections of poetry, has co-edited an award-winning collection on women’s studies and has edited two award-winning anthologies of poetry, Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, the most recent; the collection The Best of Gival Press Short Stories recently won the Great Midwest Book Festival Award for anthologies. A resident of Arlington, Virginia, he also teaches at Montgomery College in Maryland.