Rob Carney

Rob Carney is the author of four previous books of poems, most recently 88 Maps (Lost Horse Press, 2015), which was named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, as well as the forthcoming collection The Book of Sharks (Black Lawrence Press). In 2014 he received the Robinson Jeffers/Tor House Foundation Award for Poetry. His work has appeared in Cave Wall, Columbia Journal, and many others, and he writes a regularly featured series called “Old Roads, New Stories” for Terrain: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments. He lives in Salt Lake City.

“You Dropped Your Horoscope”

One morning the sun fell in love,
then changed its mind.

Life likes to go like that:
Now you’re a planet, and next,

you’re not a moon,
not an asteroid or radio wave, long gone

when the newspapers show up announcing,
“The Weather Today Calls for None.”

Who can figure the sun’s mind?
There was a poet once named Li Po.

Maybe he wrote it down somewhere:
the right words to fix the sky.