I've Been Collecting This to Tell You

Lisa Ampleman

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781606351109
• eBook ISBN:
  9781612776606
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Poesía americana

"In the old story of love and loss, Lisa Ampleman's I've Been Collecting This to Tell You cuts to the core of the matter with concision and subtlety. Hearts are laid bare, dissected, even grown anew. Masterfully structured and alert to the most vital details, this collection has lots to tell us—and a voice at once authentic and lyrical with which to do it."
—Don Bogen

"In these poems, the beloved is a space the speaker moves through—at first with trepidation, then with gathering force— emerging finally into a hard-won world ravishing in its clarity un- der a brutally beautiful "sky pinking up/like a newly healed limb." The poems of Lisa Ampleman's collection don't flinch, and the reward of their acute seeing is a song that's sustenance itself."
—Kerri Webster

"Lisa Ampleman's subtle and beautifully-wrought poems make way for the possibility that all is not "frenzy" in this "agitated world." Although we might be "the walking wounded," and "like Thomas/ need scars to believe," the poems assure us that we heal, that wholeness and grace await us."
—Eric Pankey

"A prairie is plain, they say—those who have not stood in one. And so, too, is an ordinary heartbreak, until Lisa Ampleman begins to unfold it in these closely observed and quietly surprising poems. Salvation doesn't live here, but there's plenty to salvage in the wry, self-effacing metaphors by which she harvests what wisdom experience yields."
—Susan Tichy

I’VE BEEN COLLECTING THIS TO TELL YOU

I.

On the drive north to a wedding,

bluegrass’s mournful picking fades to static

as I drive into a high cloud’s shadow

then out again. There’s nothing now

to distract me, and so I list again

the reasons why we’re finished. The highway curves,

and it feels good to turn the steering wheel

at just the right angle, to move farther

and farther away from you, the sun so bright

that my arm on the windowsill might burn.

II.

A storm came through, strong from eating

through empty prairie, the sky lit solid

by lightning. I could feel the thunder in my toes.

I turned off the lights, stood near the window—

though not supposed to—and watched,

the hotel parking lot a pock-marked river.

The rain frantic on the roof drowned out

that sarcastic turn your voice can take.

A tornado took off

roofs ten miles away.

I nearly wrote this down on hotel stationery—

but you have seen storms before

and do not need to know

I write these letters to you

in my head.

If I scribbled some note and put a stamp on it,

it wouldn’t be true by the time it arrived.

III.

We gather here to witness, the minister says,

this man and this woman.

They’re about to have their hearts sewn in, I think,

and push down the silly pathos

that says mine is still flapping about

on my sleeve. I hold you

in the bones of my jaw,

in the muscles

at the back of my neck which will not relax.

And so, vodka. And so, dancing.

White lights hang from the barn rafters,

and the couple dances their first song in blue jeans,

her left arm tucked under his right, her hand

reaching up his back to draw them close,

birds’ wings.

Late in the night, black rings the women’s eyes

as we sweat off makeup

which drew out our eyes so well

when we arrived.

IV.

Unsent postcard:

Hello from Atlanta, Illinois, and the grain elevator museum—no joke. Here, you can follow corn’s journey from seed to your cereal bowl. I stopped for kicks. Well, and my legs were sore from all the sitting. It felt good to breathe unventilated air. There’s so much sky here that I feel a bit claustrophobic.

How are

I’m sorry about how

Oh, what does it matter

V.

You are more present in your absence,

in the scent of burnt coffee grounds,

in the sunwarmed fabric you are not wearing,

which is simply a jacket in the glare of the window.

I think of you in stairwel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Because You Look for Yourself in My Poems
• I Hesitate
• Murmuration
• Tea Leaves
• Changes of State
• The Evening Star
• Electric
• Create in Me a Clean Heart
• Mouth: To Say
• Lullaby
• Vernal
• My Only Deftness
• The Grip
• Traveling in Place
• Letter from the Field of Vision
• Terms of Belief
• Clear and Cold
• Billet-Doux
• To the City, Asking for Intercession
• I’ve Been Collecting This to Tell You
• The Story I Tell Myself
• Notes