I’m watching the way she coaxes
him into hitting her again.
It is an intimate thing, weirdly
ritualistic, like my mother burying
a burnt turkey in the snow.
Something about the way she touches
the tip of her tongue to her bloody lip—
about the way his hand, red and hovering
somewhere between striking and reaching out—
reminds me of being a boy
in the backyard at twilight, waiting
for the wind to make something beautiful
from the tears of pear trees.
isbn 1-59661-072-7
34 pages/$9
Michael Bassett’s poetry uncannily combines the wistful, the sinister, and the celebratory, embracing such gonzo curiosities as “Batgirl’s silver pancake makeup case,” “The Wax Exhibition of Retired Archetypes,” and “the shrunken head of the chess-playing lobster boy.” The poems of this triumphant brief collection are absurd, brutal, comic, disturbing, lovely, and unforgettably themselves.
—Angela Ball,
author of Kneeling Between Parked Cars,
Quartet, and Possession
Poet and artist Michael Bassett holds an MFA from Vermont College and a Ph.D. from The University of Southern Mississippi. His poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Barrow Street, Cider Press Review, Fugue, Lullwater Review, Concho River Review and Kakalak. Pudding House Press published his chapbook, Karma Puppets, in 2003. He has won the 2005 Fugue Poetry Contest judged by Tony Hoagland and the Joan Johnson Award. Michael teaches, writes, and creates visual art in South Florida.
Thanks to the editors of the following publications where some of the poems in this collection have appeared:
Barrow Street: “Something About the Way She Touches”
Cider Press Review: “Crowsfeet, Possumtail and Moonwort” and “Crash Course in Phenomenology”
In The Yard: “Evening Parchment”
Iodine: “Along on Interstate 95”
Kakalak: “clairvoyant”
Lullwater Review: “Wishing”