Party Ship

BY KAY RYAN

You are a

land I can’t

stand leaving

and can’t not.

My party ship

is pulling out.

We all have

hats. I try to

toot some notes

you’ll understand

but this was not

our instrument

or plan.

from Poetry

The newly overt darkness in Kay Ryan's voice both does and does not alter her unmistakable tone (siphoning playfulness out still leaves tenderness for the instability of the world standing at the center of her work, where it always stood).

It startles, all the same, this sudden tilt in the horizon line, as if the sea might go sliding off the screen altogether, or the poem off the page.