2nd Chapbook: The Whitest Sheets

Maverick Duck Press (a small press that has published such wonderful poets as Heather Cadenhead and Kat Dixon!) is going to publish my second chapbook, The Whitest Sheets!

I'm excited to have this second small book of poetry out--I feel like it is very different from my first chapbook. A lot of the poems in there are actually older poems--things I wrote while in my undergraduate and graduate classes--and have a different attitude from what I write nowadays. More emotional and maybe a little more "Edgy" (or at least edgy for me). 

Here's the title poem from the new chapbook (also online Here):


Take Offs and Landings

1.
You did this, you tell me, and I’m suddenly
the homeowner who sees the crack in the foundation,
smells the first dank wafts of mold
in the drywall, the cellophane
flutter of termite wings,
their chewing and chewing.
The hint of damage we can’t afford
to repair.

2.
You give me a lie with truth
written across its face. Like arcade money
in a snack machine, it’s no use
to me. Best let it drop
on the sidewalk for someone else
to pocket, let it gather dust in a drawer
with all the others.

3.
White sheets over the furniture—
the armoire that belonged
to our great aunt, the unwound clock, the sofa
we were not allowed to sit on.

They stand like austere trick-or-treaters, all the same
costume—no bag for candy, no holes
for eyes or mouth, simply ghosting.

This is what we have done with our past—
covered it with the purest,
whitest sheets.