The Winter of J

Winter is a season of the heart. The Winter of J is a collection of poems set in Buffalo, New York, where Gary Percesepe spent twelve years—one winter falling in and out of love with J, and taking an axe to the frozen sea inside.

though we parted that spring the roads
kept freezing and thawing between snows
until the weak sun wakened me and I realized 
our love had made me thinner.

From First Date and new love:

She was hair and bruises with a shot of ragamuffin

my thoughts slowed to the pace of
        drifting snow

to blizzards and frozen rivers blued from bridge lights, we come inevitably to Breakup—

she will appear
like a cutting stone
her laughter a fresh sword

Finding resolution at last in acceptance, but not without lingering questions:

can memory freeze in place like this?

The Winter of J is a lyrical meditation on love and temporality. With the poet, we wonder how such a short span of time can have such a lasting impact, while marveling again at the resiliency of the human heart:

the poet amounted his affair
summed it at five months
licked his ice cream cone
and melted
We know these women only from their leavings. 
We love to watch them go.

 

The Winter of J is Gary Percesepe's eighth book. He is associate editor at New World Writing (formerly Mississippi Review), where he has worked closely with executive editor Frederick Barthelme for many years. Prior to that, he was an assistant fiction editor at Antioch Review.His work has appeared in Story Quarterly, N + 1, Salon, Mississippi Review, Wigleaf, Westchester Review, Brevity, PANK, The Millions, Atticus Review, BULL, The Good Man Project, Word Riot, Necessary Fiction, and many other places. In 2014, Pure Slush Press published his first collection of poetry, FALLING, and a collection of flash fiction titled, ITCH. Percesepe spent twelve years one winter in Buffalo, where he met J and took an axe to the frozen sea inside. Thawed at last, he met Resea Burns in White Plains, New York, and they've been together ever since. Gary Percesepe teaches philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx.