Mark Wunderlich (born 1968), is an American poet.
Mark has published two collections of poetry, most recently Voluntary Servitude (Graywolf Press, 2004). He worked on his first book, The Anchorage, as his MFA thesis at Columbia University and finished it while living in Provincetown, Massachusetts. A third book of poems, The Earth Avails, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press.
ONCE I WALKED OUT
Mark Wunderlich
Once I walked out and the world
rushed to my side. The willows bent
their willowy necks, tossed green hair hugely.
The hawk cried by the well.
The crows kept counting their kind.
Once I walked out and the sheep
bleated with sensitivity, touched
black muzzles to the grass.
I was followed by dogs, by flies,
by horses both curious and spiteful.
The field of beans worked its sums
under green, the corn licked the air to haze.
I said goodbye to the house
with its sagging porch, attic hung with bats.
Goodbye braided rug, rabbit hutch, corn popper, copper tub .
The green world greened around me—
Virginia creeper, crown vetch, thistle, mullein, sumac.
I was full in my limbs, my laugh, pinkish skin.
I swung my arms, pulled air into lungs—
pine pollen, dust mote, mold spore, atomized dew,
bright wheel of flame twisting in the heavens
flushing the eye with light.