The poems from Ashley McWaters’ Whitework are peculiar in their quiet (sometimes cold) balance of writing and erasure, interweaving the texture of both poem and subject through the difficult language of omission. These poems find sanctuary in the central, empty space at the heart of their subjects—sometimes through the literal erasure of the found text, but more often, through the subtle nuances of the language around them, a language which dually presents and preserves this absent heart through an intricate stitching of female voices. These poems are the visible stitches, the sutures left in the tissue; a needlework of the highest order. [JP]

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WHITEWORK

                                                                                                   white thread                             on    white
ground                           can be                                  simple                                    as satin and stem,
or            complicated                                    as cut              or pulled                                 work
                                                                 ) is                       displacing the warp and weft
                                    of the ground          with high tension                          . The holes created in the ground                                                                                                                are cut
away and filled in, usually with buttonhole s                                   . The lower
            illustrates how                             pattern                                         creates delicate
                                        design

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ROSE

The pale wing of your neck slides
to bone or flour, so fine it sifts
to snow, disappears beneath
my conspicuous pink. I know
I am only a sodden glove, empty,
dropped in haste, but, would you
permit, I could fashion myself
anew from your hollow rib
or the mauve quarter-moons
of your eyelids. Then after,
no plain scar, but a little bud
would stay behind to tell it.

Dear, if you leave an apple
on the nightstand, I promise
to take only one bite. Will you
cherish the fruit or the place
I left my mark? If I claim a tongue,
it will be to instruct you: Let the little
bruises be mistaken for blooms.
Speak fondly of your hiding here,
of minding your manners. Tell
softly how we are behind a bakery,
how time and again, we rose.

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STITCHING MARGINALIA

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DEAR BLUNDERERS,

I am one of you. I fear car crashes
and delivering myself to sleep,
licorice undersides of basil leaves,
little neckbroken flowers tossed
in a rosebasket and left to wither
on the lawn. I fear getting stuck
outdoors, and indoors, electric
sockets. Also the organic: it seems
to be lying. I fear that detachment
is rolling away like a noisy marble.
I fear that virtue will fold itself
into a ten-dollar bill and hide
in a coat pocket for years, that I
will then be drawn to vice
like one side of a shirt being drawn
to the other and buttoned, tight.

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