GHOST MATINEE

Shea explores how we carry the past, embody the present, and move toward the future in this collection of poems.

The collection opens with “Please Give Me Your Ars,” a reflection on wildfires and how people have become desensitized to their destruction. In “Blood Beloved,” the poet juxtaposes the “relics” of her ancestors (bone china, salt and pepper shakers, a butter dish) with the beautiful chaos of grandchildren (Legos, Pokemon cards, plastic guns). In “Pop Art Super Market,” the speaker wonders what it would be like to approach the grocery store from a 6-year-old’s perspective, through which all of the cereal boxes are “bright toys / to be thrown on the floor.” “The Slick Slope” recounts how the poet’s husband signed them up for Ski Patrol, observing, “Nobody sees me / when I take a drastic spill / then pick myself up again.” On her wedding anniversary, she tries to reconcile the expectation of a “bejeweled” gift with the reality of practical housewares. In nature-themed poems, the author describes poplars “exchanging intimacies” and revels in the bounty of a pear tree. Several poems address the collateral damage of aging, from scarred breasts in “Dimpled” to worsening sight in “Eyeglasses.” Shea’s descriptions are intricate and evocative; a phalaenopsis orchid has “leathery, oblong leaves / shaped like rabbit ears” and a “rouged moth mouth.” The poet’s truth-telling is bold and brave, as evidenced by her confession that “[She] wanted more children. [She] wanted / to become pregnant over and over”; instead, she kept this longing a secret and took the pill. Her love for her family is sincere but not saccharine in lines like, “Dearest creatures, my beloved blood / from a galaxy of nebulous deeds / beings magnetic and malleable, / you are the result of bygone pleasures and chance.” Some language is more difficult to decipher—lines like “Think vespertine, flourishing in the evening: / crepuscular. I crave an innocent gloaming” may stymie some readers.

An honest and incisive exploration of life’s loveliness that occasionally overcomplicates its message.