Robert W. King
What It was
It wasn't that I was distracted
by the small troubles people
imagine on a good day, or so much
that the girl walking toward me
had surprising gold
and creamy sparkles in her brown hair,
nor even, passing, that I saw how common
the delight: the yellow
of dandelions, the lacy white of spirea.
It was mostly walking into the blast
of that trailing tangy perfume,
and a little how quickly it thinned.
Bio
Robert W. King's first book, Old Man Laughing (Ghost Road Press), was a finalist for the 2008 Colorado Book Award in Poetry and he recently won the Grayson Books Chapbook Competition with Rodin & Co. He lives in Greeley, Colorado, where he directs the website www.ColoradoPoetsCenter.org.