Portrait

Funerals happen.
You walk past one
and call it a Tuesday

afternoon; the sun
comes down. This
is how it happens.

A crowd gathers like black water, the mind forgets the mind, memories come knocking in the hallway, a pair of hands perfect the moon: is the debut poetry collection by Jackson McCarthy. Desire, time, vision, beauty, and solitude count among this collection’s obsessions — obsessions rendered with such close-up intensity that even Death seems to reverse or suspend its trajectory. Interrupting this lyrical streak, we hear from a narrator whose tragicomic dedication to art over life results in fraught, surreal misunderstandings of the world around him. , too, is invested in its own artfulness. Playing with layers of voice and identity, these poems appear to paint portraits of their subjects — but do so blending observation with invention, memory with deep fantasy.