New Haven
- New Haven
Every so often, often in fall, we remember that public greens were once our burial grounds. For hanged men, poxy corpses, slaves: the other, from when the green was on the edge of town. In New Haven, a headline reads “Skeleton Found In Upended Tree on Green.” With pictures of somebody’s skull in the root ball, Death Investigator down in the pit fetching bones. Witnesses at the muddy scene offer their views: dead man trying to tella tale, says one. The dog walker shouts GIVEA DOG A BONE! Bones: just an earthly shell, one lady shrugged. All here, all trying to live with, reassure each other. We don’t let the dead end up in the public works chipper, a cop said. [End Page 31]
The winner of three Pushcart prizes, Jill McDonough is the author of Habeas Corpus (2008), Oh, James! (2012), and Where You Live (2012). The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford’s Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University’s Prison Education Program for thirteen years. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Nation, The Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry. She directs the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and 24 PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center online.
