Danusha Laméris

Danusha Laméris is a poet and essayist who was raised in Northern California, born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother. Her first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. She was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California, and is currently on the faculty of Pacific University’s low residency MFA program. Her third book, Blade by Blade, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. 

The Heart is Not

A pocket. A thing that

can be turned inside out

by anybody’s hand. Not

a place for pebbles or loose

change. Not to carry old

receipts. It does not tear

at the seam. It doesn’t have

a seam. It cannot be torn.

— Danusha Laméris