SAINT JULIAN PRESS


Elizabeth Cohen ~ Poet

The Lungs of Carrie Wooster Tingley 
 

​She stepped off the train
to breathe
 
and the scent was pinon
and petrichor
 
mesquite and roasted chili
river exhaling river
 
mountain exhaling mountain
pueblo breath, pottery breath
 
breath of mesa
high desert breath
 
volcano breath
breath of ancient sea
 
It was 1911 and Arizona 
was just too far 
 
so Carrie Wooster stepped 
off the train at the Alvarado Hotel
 
trading lungs filled 
with Ohio and tuberculosis
 
for the thin dry air
of the Rio Grande valley
 
stepped into the long pink 
shadow of the Sandia Mountains
 
then walked to the river
of ducks and striped turtles
 
noses lifting
from muddy shallows
 
small islands 
surfacing
 
With her mother, Carrie Wooster 
stepped off the train
 
into Albuquerque
and there married Clyde Tingley
 
together they gifted a pond, parks
a hospital for children
 
gifted a world of good
like holiday packages
 
to a place
she never intended to go
 
Carrie Wooster, a dying girl 
stepped off a train
 
and breathed her life
into Albuquerque
 
where she stopped to breathe
and that would save her

Press Release
 
Poem One
Poem Two
Poem Three
Poem Four
​

Publication Date: November 15, 2023
Paperback:  $20.00
Publisher: ‎ Saint Julian Press, Inc.
Language: ‎ English
Paperback:  94 Pages
ISBN-13:  978-1-955194-39-6

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 Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008  *  Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
 Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com