Dead Man's Float by Ruth Foley

Ruth Foley’s new book, Dead Man’s Float, is filled with beautiful poems written to and against dying. They’re lyric. They get to the heart of the matter without sentimentality, the loss of a sister, the risk of infidelity. They boldly look directly at truth, and boldly invent lie. Buy here.

From “Dear Ocean”

I have tried to exorcise you, poured clear / water over myself in the river and the lake, // taken to avoiding seafood. I have stopped / tossing salt over my shoulder in the kitchen. // Perhaps this is why my luck has begun / to sour—I have lost the means to preserve it. . .

From “Lying”

Forgive me. In my hands, the astronaut / becomes a mermaid, the shooting star // becomes a fish—not even a starfish. I / might need that one later. Your blood / has become various things: vodka, // the ocean, a pool of rippling water, / a puddle of milk about to edge over a table. // What I show in the air shatters. / What I cannot remember, I invent . . .

“Dear Firefly”

Maybe because I like you / best in the light—spare toes / spread on a leaf, false eyes / glowing at the back of your / blackening, rough wings at / rest—I like to think of you / adolescent and unfledged / in winter, sleeping beneath / the bark in our small woods— / all glimmer and potential, / snug lightning undecanted.