At once caffeinated and considered, razor-sharp smart and unsentimentally sweet, Laura Cherry navigates urban landscapes, child-bearing, stories of childhood and modest beginnings, finding resonance and beguiling surprises in the rhythms of ordinary life.
―Stefi Weisburd
Laura Cherry lives near Boston, where she works as a technical writer. She holds an MFA in Writing from Warren Wilson College.
Laura's latest chapbook, Two White Beds, is available from Minerva Rising Press, and her first full-length collection of poetry, Haunts, is available from Cooper Dillon Books. Laura's chapbook, What We Planted, was awarded the 2002 Philbrick Poetry Award by the Providence Athenaeum. She is co-editor of the anthology Poem, Revised (Marion Street Press). Her work has been published in numerous journals, including Tuesday: An Art Project, The Vocabula Review, H_NGM_N, Newport Review, Los Angeles Review, and Naugatuck River Review. It has also appeared in the anthologies Present Tense (Calyx Press), Vocabula Bound (Vocabula Books), and Letters from the World (Red Hen Press).
Two White Beds
The Writing of Two White Beds
A blog post by Laura Cherry
Order Two White Beds
Millie: Two White Beds
Once I entered your room for some
inconsequential thing, to borrow
a book or commence our daily walk,
and stopped, still, to marvel: row
on row of folios, aligned on shelves;
a hard-backed chair; stark looking-glass;
most striking of all, the bed, its flat
bolsters and taut coverlet so squared
and tucked, I longed to fling myself
in their midst, for the sake of mess.
I saw you catch my thought, your cheeks
the brightest spot in that pale room.
Seeing then my rumpled sheets, ruffled
blankets and tumbled silks, mussed
and petaled as an opened peony –
all that was hidden from your view –
I looked again, and I flushed too.
Haunts
Every turn is a surprise in this funny, wicked smart, tightly-crafted book.
―Jennifer L. Knox
Maybe I'll Stop Here
Because I only have so many fingers,
and each one lost costs me a little
more blood. Because nothing is gained
except pocket room, and a greater respect
for the genius of knives. Because
I have just enough left to work with, enough
to hail a cab without causing a scene.
Because I remember the ones I used to have,
the full complement of ten, and all they could do,
and make, and know. Because the wagging
tongues of empty glove fingers reproach me
all winter. Because there is less to love and less love
to lose. Because the memory of pain
cannot satisfy the longings of those small ghosts
demanding retribution, calling for my head.