To float, to drown, to close up, to open

E. Alex Pierce, author of Vox Humana, lives in East Sable River, Nova Scotia. She conducts manuscript review workshops throughout Canada, and is Senior Editor at Boularderie Island Press. Pierce holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and for ten years taught Creative Writing at Cape Breton University. Her work has been widely anthologized and published in literary journals. Her most recent publications are Aubade: Poetry and Prose from Nova Scotia Writers (Editor) and Salt and Wild: Shelburne County Anthology (Co-editor).

• To float, to drown, to close up, to open – a throat3 To float, to drown…19 Full Moon22 The boy. The boy is her beloved.23 Medway River, Carousel25 Nothing more lonely26 The CreekMĪthan, to conceal31 A Dug Well32 Tempest33 The sky full of empty rooms35 Bach Prelude: Reprise36 Mīthan37 Not wanting it to end39 The fetch of the wind40 It is in me forever41 VindaugaThe Stanzas. Rooms.44 You want to say the word chemise47 It could have been that morning48 The opening, the newness, as if it were now49 In an afternoon, at your house50 Not of you. Of the capturing51 Now, on YouTube, the camera52 Heat from the photo lamps53 Enraptured. Christmas morning at your house54 The two Polish chairs55 I can still see you, us. Side by side at Logan Airport56 Every Sunday morning we would set off57 Something about the dark58 What were they doing59 Honey and locusts. A man in pain60 In this last hour61 The vulnerability that doesn’t show62 Should I tell you now63 Or have we lived it64 It’s not the heart. It’s the cry65 Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo66 We’ve come so far67 The boards are bareCoda, Aubade.71 The way white lilacs73 Notes83 Acknowledgements

“Pierce creates movements in the rhythm of the estuary of Sable River, where she grew up, opening, closing up, floating and drowning as consistently as moon directs the tides…. Hers is a poetry of attentiveness, reaching back through the years and into the future without sentimentality…” [Full review at https://freefallmagazine.wordpress.com/2020/09/14/review-of-e-alex-pierces-to-float-to-drown-to-close-up-to-open/]