The Egg Goes Under: poems by Alec Hershman. Number 1 in Volume Five, and the twentieth title published in our limited-edition Summer Kitchen Chapbook Series. Now available.

Cover image: vintage fabric swatch, “Southdown Challie.” Mitchell & Church Company, The Waisting and Suiting House, Binghamton, New York. Series design by Ron Mohring.

Published: August 11, 2017 [49 copies]
28 pages
$9.00 

 

 

 

 

 

Alec Hershman lives in Michigan, where he teaches literature and philosophy. He has received awards from Playa, the KHN Center for the Arts, the Jentel Foundation, the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, and the Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design. You can find links to more of his work at alechershmanpoetry.com.

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The Usher 

I saw you wrap a cello, 
and I swanned, 
took you from the back.

Rim-simple, I ran my hand
across the handle,
across the frets.

What did you think a ghost
was made of?
Shadow stitches

to the floor its paper-waters.
A storm is responsible
for much of this–the living

running on chalk-feet,
the clouds landing
like a kind of mold.

And we’re no better,
just dust and rosin.
So we must flee the pavilion,

and I’d carry you
if not for your wheel-chair,
lift your arm to point, if not 

for the slip-shot spine.
Wristbone, cornerbone–
two brief meters of the fall.

Listen, when you hear me now
it’s just behind the ear, sliding
through a puddle in the cross-walk,

your thin shoulder rolling in my grip,
your useless feet an inch above your shoes.

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• Purchase your copy here [only 24 copies are available from the press!]