Twenty-One Farewells
by Emily Kerlin

From arcing fireworks to a bat in the belly of a church organ, Emily Kerlin’s poems explore the expansive territory of farewell. Each poem enshrouds the reader in a mystery of loss, some miniscule, others astronomical, coaxing them toward revelation. And in what striking forms these revelations manifest: a boy lost forever as “Mice scuttle in the hay,/ brittle leaves scratch/ in the autumn chill”; a husband struggling with “the constant problem/ of breath”; a plague and its wake of “crocuses pushing purple into this cold March morning.” Kerlin’s poetry compels you to lean in a little closer, to listen and look with more intention, then rewards you with “a spill of starlight,” and “the fragile lace of the human lung.”