Pattie McCarthy

Pattie McCarthy is the author of six books of poetry: Quiet Book, Marybones, Table Alphabetical of Hard Words, Verso, and bk of (h)rs from Apogee Press, and nulls from Horse Less Press. She is also the author of a dozen chapbooks, most recently margerykempething and qweyne wifthing from eth press. A former Pew Fellow in the Arts, McCarthy teaches literature and creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Here are four of her sonnets from a longer sequence. 


goodwifthing

this year aged me twenty it's stupid
to say but it's true           it's them pills I took
&c      whatever     at forty-
five lady mary carey wrote her
meditation it's as good a time as any
I think you should know I walk the long way
home      circumambulate the seminary
when I was a kid my friends would sled there
hold on tight         but I said I don't jump
fences to get closer to priests
there are different categories of loss
don't confuse my sadness for guilt or regret
I count counted backwards to it     I hope
you like how I'm wearing my effort now

goodwifthing

mercy      a midden or a crown       mercy

the witches come in silks with manbuns

reckless with optimism we go on

my father's body is probably gone

in truth I rarely think of it that way

good wyvern       my daughterthing says      she said

this year is twenty years maybe next time

I get to be the one who falls apart

depictions of the body as bloodless

weightless      anemic   plastic      couldn't be

more distant from me I don't know how to

read them      I cannot helpe peoples talking

of me       of course I'm wrong about his body

but I'm horrorstruck thinking about it

goodwifthing

mercy only      goodwyfs from the other
side of town are witches that's obvious
in my tongue of wool & flax is the law
in my autumnal teaching costume I
exercise the etymology of
gossamer for fifty minutes
once there was a daughterthing she watched
her cobwebs    mercy  a midden or crown
her back to the hill her face to the sea
& which is still to be seen to this day
note     she is impassable at high tide
unexpected catalogue      archive of
the flood     a large accumulation of small
things chalky softwhite left on my fingers

goodwifthing

mercy you have to relearn hunger you

have to learn to be hungry for days so

hungry that lights go out as you pass so

hungry steps disappear just do the work

unnatural november weather

easing up for year-end erasure

mercy     only goodwyfs from the impassable

tide the other side         archive of the flood

these days need crows & so they come we put

glittering things out to draw them near     not

near enough        when my son can't sleep we day

dream the dazzle of sunlight on water

different bodies all the time       it's the dazzle

that soothes him       he stores fragments for later