Claire Matthews
About the Writer
Claire Matthews’ work, long-listed for the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize, has appeared in Arc, Joyland, Room Magazine, Loose Lips Magazine, The Maynard, and Plenitude. She’s currently working on a collection of essays titled, I Bet You Think This Book Is About You. In her spare time, she makes soap and drinks whisky.
MY UNDERWEAR DRAWER HOUSES THE BOOK OF MORMON
I like worst-case scenarios. She likes the rebellious girls
she masturbates to. I want to bite into them,
juice dribbling down my chin. Where do we go from here?
This adulterous thing you have going on
makes me immune to judgment. It’s like a promise
ring without a ring. It’s just a promise.
You carry Werthers in your purse?
So I can make friends. Would you like one, friend?
She was that kind of girl.
But we don’t have to be geography—neither of us
know the meaning. I scrape your surface, but perhaps
it was only an echo. We don’t know where we’ve been.
We walk through the streets, cut across
the predictability of snow. The first time
you call me Hummel, knot me to a line.
Logic is the philosophical analysis of arguments.
I want to tell you what I couldn’t then:
there’s never a secret not told.
When Ra wept and his tears hit the ground
they turned into honeybees. If I could pick a part of you
to stay: the other woman.
Contents
Poetry
-- Ambassador To A Distant Kingdom In The North County
-- Memory Consumed So It Was Never
-- To My Brother's Late Dragon Lady
-- House Stuff
-- My Underwear Drawer Houses the Book of Mormon
-- sunday mornings, after Afghanistan
Prose
-- Heat Dream
-- Mayonaise
-- Orlando Two Point O: Hashtag Forever Yung
Artwork and Photography
-- The New World Manbike 12 x 9 2016
-- The New World Workers 2 Ink 15 x 11 2016
-- Mistry Trees
-- Let it Begin
-- Untitled-Gouache, Graphite, Ink and Watercolour on Laid-Textured Paper
-- Nope-Gouache, Graphite, Ink and Watercolour on Found Paper
-- Horrible Together, Full Circle-Ink on Cardboard Paper
Reviews
Margaret Crawford
-- A Review of Kathleen McCraken's Double Self-Portrait with Mirror: New and Selected Poems (1978-2014)
-- A Review of R. Aviars Utskins' The Hoosier Zebra and other "Poims"