Many-Storied House: Poems

Epigraph, Contents

Deep in the house is the carpenter’s hand beginning things at their end Contents Provenance 3 Downstairs Entry Door 7 Bathroom 8 Closet 10 Passage 11 Living Room That Chair 12 Art 14 Visitor 15 Dining Room Money Laundering 16 Oh, My 18 Ritual 19 Collector’s Item 20 Phone 21 August 4, 1944 22 Kitchen Reveille 23 Blood and Water 24 The Radio 25 Legacy 26 Junk Drawer 27 Vision 28 Over Coffee 29 Daddy’s Last Christmas 30 Kitchen Table 31 Basement What Won’t Burn 32 Bucket Brigade 33 Garage The Ham 35 New Room 36 Flood It Got Us This Time 41 No Light 43 Worst Flood in Harlan County History 44 Interim 46 Threshold 47 Upstairs Stairway Landing 51 Library On Those Shelves 52 Interior Design 53 Portrait 55 Smithereens 56 Memory Book 58 It Was a Year 60 This Is 61 Shit 62 [Untitled] 63 Hall By the Laundry Hamper 64 Linen Closet 66 My Room Toy Chest 67 Hiding 68 Doll Mother 69 Night of the Mysteries 70 Brother’s Room Off Limits 73 How It Smelled 74 Sleepless 75 Parents’ Room Arthritis, 1952 77 The Photo of Granny Buby 78 November 21, 1963 80 Half 81 With a Song in His Heart 82 Bathroom Sanctus 84 Company 86 Cliff 88 Yard D-Day 93 Westward Ho 95 At Play 96 All of It Postgraduate Work 99 It Doesn’t Matter 100 In the ER 101 On Her Side 103 Final Play 105 Labor 106 Every Cupboard Bare, Every Head Bowed 107 Thanksgiving Night 109 The Day After 110 I Can’t Believe 112 Welcome 114 Acknowledgments 117 Index of First Lines 119 Many-Storied House ...