Starfish

I don’t know how Dallas Saylor does it. One minute he sounds like the Sibyl of Cumae as a real person, an oracle of yesteryear who’s sporting an apron and a rolling pin because she’s making you a pie or chaps and a lasso because she’s a breaker of horses, and the next he’s as playful and intimate as the kid next door. Maybe a poem called “Dream of the Teleportation Helmet” accounts for all this marvelous shape-shifting; it begins “One word, one thought & you’re sent anywhere.” True enough, but I’d say the real payoff to these captivating poems is that they send me everywhere — enjoy the journey, reader.

—David Kirby

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