People
Lia Purpura

Lia Purpura photo

Lia Purpura Quotes

Total quotes: 1

Lia Purpura photo

Lia Purpura

Birthname

AKA: Lia Purpura

Birthday: February 22, 1964

Educated At: Oberlin College, Iowa Writers' Workshop

Nationality: United States Of America

Occupations: Translator, Writer, Poet

Total quotes: 1

“A man walks into a coffee shop.
But it’s not a joke.
I bought coffee there
last summer.
Small, with milk.
It’s never a joke
to walk in or out of a shop
unharmed. It’s easy
to forget
you aren’t a person
being shot at.
I’m not.
I wasn’t, though
I was there,
last summer.
Not-shot-at
and I never knew it.
Did not once
think it.
Thinking it now
the moment thins,
it sheers,
and I move back to
other coffee shops
where I never fell, or bled,
and then
I sit for a while
with my regular cup
and feel things collapse
or go on, I can’t tell.”

— Lia Purpura, Proximities

Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Coffee Shop, milk, joke, Summer

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