Kathleen McGookey is a poet of both the domestic, and the crazy-wild, a poet at once at war with, and in love with her world. These prose poems in her new collection sting, they smart, they sing and they stomp.

Dear Death

can’t you see we’re busy riding bikes in the sun? Later we’ll cut out paper hearts and sprinkle them with glitter. I have had enough of you. I’d rather learn facts about penguins: what they eat, how much they weigh, how they stay warm in the Antarctic. Some are called Emperor. Some, Rockhopper. First-graders whose gap-toothed smiles break my heart surround me. They hold out the class guinea pig for me to pet. Let’s pretend you forget all about us.