Thin Attachment
At this hour any god is rainA woman pulls plastic from a dumpster holds it up to her body to see if it fitsShe inhabits blatantly her wish to be dry The rain inhabits its fallingMy car inhabits the street The wind winds the woman wrangling the plasticA gull of newsprint scuds the fogged windscreen, veers me to a haltMy steering wheel, hands at two and ten, her shopping cart filled with clothes and wet cardboardMorning’s thin attachments— On the street of beggars a monsoon wealth
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- June 24, 2021
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“Thin Attachment” from THE MINUSES: by Jami Macarty.
Published by Center for Literary Publishing March 6th, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by Jami Macarty.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Vincent K. Wong
Jami Macarty gratefully recognizes Native Nations of the West—especially the Coast Salish and O’odham—as the traditional and rightful owners of lands where she has the great privilege to live and work—as a teacher at Simon Fraser University, as editor of the online poetry magazine The Maynard, and as a writer of essays, reviews, and poetry. She is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Her work has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, British Columbia Arts Council, and The Community of Writers, and by editors at literary publications such as Beloit Poetry Journal, The Capilano Review, The Fiddlehead, Interim, The Rumpus, Vallum, and Volt.
Fort Collins, Colorado
Colorado State University
"Jami Macarty’s poems draw us into the vagaries of human love, just as they implicate us in the ‘menagerie of the surviving world.’ These marvellously immersive poems of the Sonoran Desert and of our human deserts of the heart insist on each step taken, each present moment’s opening perception. Macarty’s lines nudge us toward non-dual Buddhist emptiness in each gap, each leap beyond wording. A must-read."
—Daphne Marlatt
"These poems are as full of heart as they are of a keen intellect. Exquisitely honed and crafted, The Minuses provides testament to poetry’s ability to speak the unspeakable, to not only survive but to carry on: ‘she’s off-trail but knows her direction.’ This is a beautiful book of courage and the power to live fully, and on this planet, through heartbreak and hard-won joy."
—Gillian Conoley
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