CHRISTINE BROOKS
Author Feature - June 2021
Christine Brooks is a graduate of Western New England University with her B.A. in Literature and her M.F.A. from Bay Path University in Creative Nonfiction. Her series of vignettes, Small Packages, was named a semifinalist at Gazing Grain Press in August 2018. Her essay, What I Learned from Being Accidentally Celibate for Five Years was featured in HuffPost, MSN, Yahoo and Daily Mail UK in April 2019. Her first book of poems, The Cigar Box Poems, was released in February 2020. Her second, beyond the paneling, is due out in April 2021.
https://www.christinebrookswriter.com/
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FEATURED POETRY
INSIDE THE PALE
if you’re going to notice me,
notice me in a place
that strums & dances at will
along Grafton street
where flowers and fortunes are
bought & sold
for a song
if you’re going to sit with me,
sit with me on a sunbeam
along the green
where Chaffinches sing &
verbena flowers bow to
the Trinity bell tower
if you’re going to love me
meet me on Westland Row
downstairs from the bakery
by the staircase, at a small
table for two
and tell me how we
died
THE LADDER
she drips, crying
still for that last night
outside
when it was warmer than it
should have been for a
November night
and they sat outside, sipping cocktails
and changing floodlights
while they still could, before
the snow and darkness came
the broken-down wooden ladder
wobbly at best
had her closer to heaven then she had been in so long
so long in fact that she forgot how it felt
to be up there with him holding
her, as rickety as it was
he held on tight as she stretched on tippy toes for the
light
now his chair leans against the shed
still
and the old ladder is back in the garage
and she sits alone and the grand tree who had always
been alive
could do nothing
but weep
because she did not
understand
FISHING WITH CORN
I remember fishing with my father not
in the way most would, at least
I don't think
so
No, don't hurt the worm, I said please
don't hurt the worm
it's okay, he always said, even though
we both knew it wasn't
as he did his best to tie the worm in a knot
around my shiny hook instead of
piercing his small body
knowing that he would drown
anyway
I wasn't the son he wanted if kids were even
in his dreams
and I certainly wasn't the fishing buddy
he could have had
but still,
when we fished with corn
on the banks of a tiny pond in a small town
that no one ever heard of
and allowed ourselves to be small
like the corn niblet on my silver hook
we were
— happy