POETS’ CORNER: ERIKA GORDON GIVES THANKS

21 Nov POETS’ CORNER: ERIKA GORDON GIVES THANKS

Editor’s note: Erika Moss Gordon is no stranger to Telluride Inside… and Out. In her year-round role of community outreach and education for the Telluride Film Festival, she is responsible for Sunday at the Palm – The Storyteller program is this weekend, 4 p.m., and free to all – and Cinematheque, a cinephile’s club, that is a joint venture between Film Fest and the Wilkinson Public Library. In that capacity, Erika pens a mean press release. But poetry. Who knew? Erika Moss Gordon publishes her first book in January of 2013, a collection of poetry, “Of Eyes and Iris.” The following for Thanksgiving about taking nothing for granted is her first contribution to TIO’s popular Poets’ Corner.

Erika Gordon

Give Thanks

The men, they tap

their feet so fast

like a battery of bullets

against the boards

against the pavement

so the people clapped

and give their dollars

and sense

the woman

with her too big

sweater and pajama pants

and the tan of a thousand

summers. She comes so close

to join the dance

for a moment before

she remembers

about not belonging

anywhere and the child

asks, Mommy did she ever


have a mother?