IV. He's safe now, dead somewhere. Not a woods anyone would want ; Inside the skull cage began ; Let's see, if I was thirteen, then ; A filly for a filly to Me, only me ; Early spring, April maybe, dusk ; Gifts from me ; Side step side step kick kick ; The boots? Yes, that's right ; Red-winged blackbirds swirling above ; Even though the one I really wanted ; After I lead the beloved ; The first time I saw the analyst ; It must have taken my mother hours ; Once, he broke ; He wasn't a Boston priest ; What I had to say on the occasion of Roy Moore's defeat ; When I asked him ; Mother's in the basement mangling ; Afterward, the long ride home -- II. Blue Moon Suite. Dawn in Jutland: gulls lift a flock of white commas ; My mother's poverty of no shoes not no new shoes ; My mother gave him his Danish name ; Once in a blue moon, my mother says for times ; Who's allowed me to go riding ; It was nighttime and Father was driving ; Blue moon ; When Christine Blasey Ford -- III. Black Fox. The second time I saw the analyst ; The good child ; Nobody else home ; When Uncle Jim got boils on his back ; After TB took her mother ; So, the farmer's wife called my mother ; Glossary ; He wasn't all that tall ; Third prize for my biggest "hand" one ; The same two dull wool skirts ; Bareback, I have given her her head ; Math class, no matter how she tries ; My father reclines ; The last time, I was walking home ; Someone's planted perennials along Ohio 71 ; Tess's long tale of love ; What I would tell me, the girl playing circus ; I take it back ; Squealing, squirting, rubbing ; It was more wishing ; At the Oakwood Stables Horse Show ; It will throw them all off, so ; October sliding into November ; The girl I read about ; A black fox sometimes followed me -- IV. Zinc. And then what? ; Rachel at thirteen, granddaughter ; Am I riding toward ;tBlue moon ; Not many people know my dog is a horse ; My mother tells me ; When the newborn ; What is joy if not spindle-legged ; Bareback and barefoot, a daisy chain ; What exactly happened? ; Covered in that black goop ; When my mother had brain tumor surgery ; You call up the tough kid ; My mother had this awful fear ; Now, I live six hundred miles away ; Let me sing you ; He Showed Up Again Last Night ; I have allowed myself ; I've gone back there ; Why this? Why now? ; He's safe now, dead somewhere.
Summary:
In these visceral poems, Diane Kerr reckons with dark trauma. Retracing memories from girlhood that she once felt compelled to keep secret, her perspective shifts as the lens of adulthood brings the past into sharp clarity. Moments are revealed in layers; we join the narrator as she recalls riding through fields on horseback, watches a woman testify on television, and comes to terms with her own experiences. Vivid recollections of emotionally charged minutiae--broken-in cowboy boots, the second button on a blouse, a pink begonia-patterned housecoat--remind us how even the smallest details can be fraught with both nostalgia and pain. Each poem wields power, with resonating narratives of fear, confusion, denail, and understanding reminding us that suffering has no statute of limitations. -- From back cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.