Kathleen McGookey

A Poem Is a Little Church, Remember?
 
Where peach trees flourish year-round, heavy with fruit.  Where bluebirds perch in the branches, then swoop down to eat from our hands.  Where the barn owl’s eyes are yellow as flame and do not flicker, but the river flickers alive because we’ve put peaches, those tender jewels, inside it, and the current carries them away.  We don’t name the river, whose banks glisten with dragonflies that emerge from the water, then practice opening and closing their glassy wings.  In the little church, a door opens.  The door is red, the door is wood, the door is wrought iron and we have the skeleton key.  It opens onto a courtyard with a fountain that sounds like the river, tamed, whose only business is wishes.  What’s better than a held breath, a tossed coin?  A pocket, freshly mended, or a crop of lost pennies scattered on the path, their coppery, ridged faces reflecting the sun.

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This poem is from the author's book, Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)

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Cloud Report, 1/18/23
 
Now the angels are in my kitchen, whipping cream in big silver bowls.  I am tired of being afraid.  When they look at the sky, an airplane slowly disappears into sweet white chiffon, bare wet trees stark against it.  I didn’t invite them, but like clouds, a few arrived anyway.  They gaze over my shoulder toward the horizon when I ask, What happens now?  They offer me a soft chair with the best view and a cup of hot chocolate, but the clouds form a wall as far as I can see.  So the angels curl on the couch, then tuck their robes around their knees.  Clearly, they have time.
 
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This poem first appeared in Cloud Reports (Celery City Chapbooks, 2024) and was reprinted in Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)

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​Still
 
Two layers of clouds sheer as bridal veils glide fast in opposite directions, edges blurred, swirling me in white and blue, even though I’m below all that motion, sitting still.  Remind me, was there still snow on the ground when the world stopped, churches and bars and schools closed, everything canceled?  Was there wind?  Each day stretched three times its usual size.  In our house, no one sang, though many nights we played euchre at the kitchen table.  Once, the lights flickered out.  The next morning, the well pump quit.  Our house became an island, shuttered tight against the news.  But it still leaked in.  Night and day behaved themselves, at least, and lined up to walk on sock feet down the hall.  From time to time I sat in the attic, wrapped in blankets, and watched the aspen’s branches scrape the gray horizon.  We fed our worry to the bluebirds which nested just inside our yard.  Our supply was abundant.  The young birds grew strong and practiced flying among the branches, then perched next to each other, briefly, three on one branch, two on another, like bright scraps of sky.  
 
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This poem first appeared in Dreaming Awake:  New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and was  reprinted in Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)

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Aubade with Selfies
 
I’m waiting for the swirling snow to stop and finally reveal the horizon.  Right this minute, I’m caught in a cloud:  I can’t see the field beyond the trees and if I could, it would also be white.  My niece has just landed in Paris, and sits in a silver chair in front of a gilt-framed mirror, sipping coffee.  Her updates find me almost instantly, here in the midst of the snow.  Now I can’t even see the trees.

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This poem first appeared in On the Seawall and was reprinted in Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)

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Junior Year Abroad
 
I intended to live one significant moment after another, beginning with that tiny bottle of Dior cologne in the cramped bathroom of my Air France flight.  This was the before.  Before the man next to me sighed and scribbled apologies to his beloved all night long.  Before I rode the train carrying a bouquet of violets.  Before I sat in cemeteries at noon, chewing my baguette.  Before the lost passport, the bad haircut, the tripped fuse that knocked out power to a whole apartment building.  Before my teacher burst into our classroom, clutching the novel she assigned, and pointed at me.  Of course I confused key points:  Did the piano really mix cocktails each time it was played?  Did the young woman grow a water lily in her lung?  Yes, she was tragically beautiful, red-haired and pale.  Yes, the owner of that wondrous piano briefly married her.  But understanding the book was like trying to touch a whitecap on an ocean wave as it washed back out to sea.  Even now, I still hope to stumble across the definitive English translation.
 
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This first appeared in New Flash Fiction Review and was reprinted in Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)

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Inside Out
 
The girl turns the house inside out.  Does it matter what she’s looking for?  She turns herself inside out.  She turns the lake and the sky and the clouds inside out.  Inside out, they are not much different.  But the girl is tireless.  She has only one assistant, a loyal dog the colour of flame, and so much ground to cover.  Behind her eyes, two swans drift among the lily pads, dripping with rain.  Two more join them, then two more.  She blinks away their slick feathers and black bills full of seaweed, then turns toward the constellations and the moon, which grows thinner every day.  What difference will it make if she turns those things inside out?  Dark is dark.  And she is caught in its throat.

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This poem first appeared in MacQueen’s Quinterly and was reprinted in Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)

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Eight to Ten Inches by Nightfall
 
My daughter built a woman from snow on our front step, then added a red apron and a witch’s stringy wig.  It is anatomically correct.  Now I am surprised by unexpected company when I glimpse it, chalky and gleaming, through the window.  But no one’s really there.  No one’s coming, either, though we’ve shoveled a path to the garage.  We’ve sent our little griefs to sleep under the maple, and a gust has erased their tracks.  Near the feeder, a wild turkey flaps to clear the drift that has built itself, hour by hour, tall as a girl.  The field and sky are white mirrors that make us dizzy, twins who aren’t at all lonely for the touch of a hand or wing.
 
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This first appeared in Poetry East and was reprinted in Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)

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Pandemic Ode
 
Oh gray horizon, gather me up.  I am tired of learning to walk nicely on a leash.  Soon the day will snatch me in its jaws—I never know exactly when.  Its teeth are white and sharp as stars.  I’d be your pet in exchange for the kind of sleep that doesn’t strand me on my knees in a warehouse full of wedding dresses, searching for sequins and needles and lace. I’m happy to drink from puddles on the street.  Happy to fetch sticks, or not, and drop them at your feet.  Oh cloudless sky, gather me up and let me stay awhile, say you’ll keep me safe.  Safe from that breeze across my sweaty neck.  Safe from that other self, snapping and growling inside her cage of bones.
 
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This first appeared in Prairie Schooner and was reprinted in Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024.)
 
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​​Kathleen McGookey has published five books and four chapbooks of prose poems, most recently Paper Sky (Press 53) and Cloud Reports (Celery City Chapbooks).  Her work has appeared in journals including Copper Nickel, December, Epoch, Field, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, On the Seawall, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and Tupelo Quarterly, as well as in the anthologies Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and New Micro:  Exceptionally Small Fiction.  She lives in Middleville, Michigan, with her family.  Depending on the season, she waterskis, downhill skis, walks, and bakes pies.