Cynthia Atkins grew up in Chicago, Il. She received a BFA and MA in painting and English from the University of Illinois, and then an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. For four years, she worked as assistant director for the Poetry Society of America. Since moving to Rockbridge County, Virginia, she has taught English and Creative Writing at Sweet Briar College, Hollins University, and currently at James Madison University. She also serves as artistic director for WRITERS@JORDAN HOUSE (reading series and workshops). Atkins' poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals including, AMERICAN LETTERS & COMMENTARY, BOMB, BLOOMSBURY REVIEW, CHELSEA, DENVER QUARTERLY, LUNA, NEW YORK QUARTERLY,RIVENDELL, SEATTLE REVIEW, SENECA REVIEW, SOU'WESTER, THE TEXAS REVIEW AND VERSE. A couple of upcoming anthologies: "Blues for Bill: A tribute to Wiliam Matthews,' and "In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself." Atkins is a also a visual artist and works with her husband to make functional and funky assembledge/wood pieces, which can be found on www.postpcasso.com
She lives in 'sleep-deprived' heaven with her husband Phillip and son, Eli in Rockbridge County, VA.

atkinscb@jmu.edu

Holes

White space as in flour

sifting

to my notebook, where the moth

I drew an hour ago, just flew off

the page.

It left a cone or a sphere-The space

around the margin, like the body's imprint

left on the bed.

The place I'm digging?- Unreachable,

or off-limits

as in a picket-line, or a picket fence.

For a moment, I want to see the in between,

awkward space

of a 3-legged dog. As a girl, I punched them

in jar-lids, to watch the metallic souls

of insects repeat,

repeat as a neon sign. At the last,

when the bathtub drains, do I remain?

The basin will dream itself

into something guttural, like my father snoring

in heaven-or taking up the bag-pipes,

instrument of death's

inflections. But he never said or told me:

Every how many miles do I rotate

the tires?

The coat I wore to the hole

in the ground has gone to the moths.

So be it.

My insides lined with terrorists, this womb

a terrible coffin-Unborn. Undone.

Cigarettes burning

an armchair or an arm…The hole that the moth left

was an omission, rather than an admission-

A portal or port-hole,

I let the insects fly out of the jar.