Charlotte's Julie Suk reads Sunday at Park Road Books

Charlotte poet Julie Suk's latest book, "Lie Down with Me," includes new poems along with selected works from four earlier collections.

"That's my whole life in that book, from my very earliest writings," says Suk, 87.

"Her poetry," says Michael Simms, her editor at Autumn House Press, "balances on that razor's edge between fulfillment and desire."

She'll give a reading at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.

Here's one of her new poems:

Luna

Splayed against the window,
its moth powder sifts
through the screen.

The eyespot on each wing
blind as I was toward those I loved --

meaning the ghosts who still
mill around in my dreams.

The dust of rue
must have been terrible
for my 103-year-old grandfather,
wives and friends he outlived
haranguing his sleep.

A lovesick boy once threw pebbles
at my bedroom window.

Huddled in a cocoon of sheets
I refused his pleas,

afraid he might break
through my green will, afraid
of loss even before I took flight.