TRACING BODIES

Watts blends nostalgia and emotional honesty in these true-to-life poems.

Family is the focus of these poems as Watts spins ordinary moments into colorful tapestries. The author opens with “Snake I” and “Snake II,” recalling a grandmother, Ruth, who spent her entire life in a cabin in Elk Mountain and once treated the speaker’s snake bite. Watts captures gritty characters in stunning detail throughout the book. In “Ester,” the speaker remembers Uncle Ike, a relative bedridden from a coal-mining accident, and Aunt Ester, who gave the speaker old-fashioned trinkets. A complicated, ill fatherly figure appears in multiple poems. In “Dad II,” the speaker’s father tells a doctor through “lying lips” that he did not fall, then derides the medical profession. After her father dies from heart failure, the speaker suspects the prepaid crematorium scammed the deceased in “Dad III.” “Mrs. W” details a provocative neighbor who wears miniskirts, belly-baring tops, and bloodstained clothes. “Townsfolk” introduces readers to the local baker, grocer, and shoe seller, all exhibiting kindness in their own ways. The speaker reminisces about a long-gone bowling alley in “Hank,” named after its unusual maintenance man. An adult speaker with a heart condition wonders about the private life of her “Cardiologist” while signing surgery consent forms with trembling hands in “Surgeon.” “Artificial Intelligence” cloyingly considers all the things AI can’t do, like “savor / the warmth of a lap cat / gentle toll of distant bell / smell of home.” Watts’ striking poems are at once intimate and universal. Her characters come to life in evocative details, like the way Uncle Ike’s cough made “a clang like a peach pit / shot into a tuba’s throat.” Sensory-engaging descriptions limn how a screen door “whines, thuds shut” or snow boots “punch holes / through the ice-crusted sidewalks.” The bittersweet, insightful “Mothers” juxtaposes young moms’ woes (e.g., pregnancy weight) with an older, wiser speaker’s laments: “How useless / the fat / I carry around / on my hips / feels with no one / to prop there.” A quibble—the book seemingly catapults­ from childhood to late adulthood with little attention to the midlife experience.

A vulnerable, cleareyed portrait of humanity that could benefit from a wider scope.