Heaven Was the Moon

Kory Wells

INTERSECTION

The newcomer:

When we moved here
that road was two lanes
now it’s two plus two
plus the turn lane
and it needs to be
three plus three
but they’ve got
to keep a median
somehow it’s crazy
in this traffic
it takes me thirty minutes
to cross town and
it’s not getting any better.

The old-timer:

When we moved here
that road was a pig path
on a farm
miles outside the city limits
with only a few houses
within shouting distance
and now they’re not
but ten feet apart. Why
it’s crazy. You could open up
your window and hand
your neighbor a piece of toast.

isbn 1-59661-120-0
44 pages/$9

In a materialistic world, Wells seeks “flash of doe tail and dogwood,” revelations that “outlast wind, weather and memory.” Her crafted words honor Faulkner’s old verities of the heart: love, compassion and sacrifice. Informed with the lives of real people, these poems charm with satire, tenderness and deep spiritual urgings.
—Bill Brown

All is motion and change in this perceptive coming-of-age collection. Uprooted young to suburbia, a “new frontier” of signage and commerce, Wells deftly straddles the “elusive country…mythic in its calm,” and the mind-cluttering here and now. Ride along with this seeker who leaps with humor and unblinking revelation.
—Linda Parsons Marion

In this beautiful clutch of poems, Wells skillfully examines the space between restriction and liberty, the palpable way people and place pull at our lives like gravitational forces. Heaven Was the Moon is a lovely first book.
—Darnell Arnoult

Kory Wells’ poetry and prose have appeared in publications nationwide. Ladies’ Home Journal praised her “standout” essay in the anthology She’s Such a Geek. Her novel-in-progress was a finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. Chief communications officer for a software company, she lives with her family near Nashville, Tennessee.