Contributor’s Marginalia: Kathleen McGookey responding to “Voice of the Woods on Fire” by Caylin Capra-Thomas

I loved the powerful and haunting voice as well as the echoes of fairy tales in Caylin Capra-Thomas’s poem. When I sat down to respond, my son had just worked late into the night on especially frustrating calculus homework. Lately I have been using the prompt “The Negative Inversion Poem” from Diane Lockward’s book The Crafty Poet, which suggests writing, line by line, the opposite of each line of a poem by someone else. So I began with “I never sleep.” Though I eventually cut this line, it was all I needed (plus borrowing a few of Caylin’s excellent nouns), to lead me to this poem.

Night Sky with Calculus Worksheet

Like always, the stars are numberless and mute. They can’t help you. That glimmer under a closed door might lead to the pool of light cast by a green banker’s lamp or a pen scribbling, then swiftly crossing out. Doubt curls in your lap, kneading its paws and purring. Sleep is an elegant, lonely theory. The attic beams creak a little in the wind; the clock ticks late, late, late. Is an axe the inverse of greed? No, axe must equal greed which equals your ancient pine bed, shimmering upstairs like a mirage. In this particular case, bats flock like a physical whisper inside the eaves again. Tonight, one has blundered into the ductwork, and scrabbles now, softly, behind the furnace grate, tapping and tapping to be let out.