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Neighbors
For Ann and Tony
In her sheared-off nylon coat, the woman
with white hair stands outside,
swaying and backing up slowly.
When I look again, she's gone.
We send engagement flowers
and hospital flowers. We dig
circles in the grass for lilac bushes.
Behind the brick house next to us:
an indoor pool, enormous, used only
by invisible swimmers.
All winter the windows steam and clear.
The ambulance stops down the block
and takes away the covered stretcher.
Next week, the For Sale sign goes up.
Wood fences weather in the sun.
Yelling, ten-year-olds coast the hill.
The morning glories open and close,
watching neither kindly nor unkindly.
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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.
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About Laura Cherry
Laura Cherry's first full-length collection of poetry, Haunts, is now available from Cooper Dillon Books. Her 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 journals, including Forklift: Ohio, H_NGM_N, The Vocabula Review, Newport Review, LA Review, and Naugatuck River Review. It has also appeared in the anthologies Present Tense (Calyx Press) and Vocabula Bound (Vocabula Books). She received an MFA from Warren Wilson College. She lives near Boston, where she works as a technical writer.
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Order Haunts here:
Praise for Laura Cherry's Haunts:
At once caffeinated and considered, razor-sharp smart and unsentimentally sweet, Laura Cherry navigates urban landscapes, childbearing, stories of childhood and modest beginnings, finding resonance and beguiling surprises in the rhythms of ordinary life. Like the three year old in one of her poems, Cherry's crisp language "rockets through the room firm and loud in [its] skin." Haunts is moving, cathartic, gossipy, humorous, and always fascinating. — Stefi Weisburd, author of The Wind-Up Gods
There is a fearlessness of spirit in Laura Cherry's Haunts, her debut full-length collection — a fearlessness of engaging the full round of life. There is both authority of voice and winning delivery in this fine book whose concerns are wide and truly felt. I love the rightness of the music of their expressiveness. Reader, get yourself a copy of Haunts and send one to a friend! — Stuart Dischell, author of Dig Safe
Some poets take a lot of time mucking up the surface of their poems, turning on the smoke machine, draping silk scarves over the lamps, etc. They don't want to be too clear. The poems in Haunts are crystal clear, but that doesn't help you see what's coming. Every turn is a surprise in this funny, wicked smart, tightly-crafted book. Laura Cherry makes me happy to be a poet. — Jennifer L. Knox, author of Drunk By Noon
The "perfect symmetry" of the cars on a bridge — symmetry in Cherry's work occurs not in nature, but in human life. A flock of birds takes off "on schedule" and the speaker thinks of a "luminous plane." Cherry even has the gall to take on the odes (and the ghost) of John Keats. In each reading of this book, a new image or idea catches me. Each time I pick it up, I can't wait to find out what's next. —Adam Clay, author of A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World
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Copyright © 2007–2010 Laura Cherry. All rights reserved.
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