Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
Sheds
Out back. Behind the house. A place for the lawn mower or long planks you might need some day. A place to cool off, the ratty old recliner letting you sink in. Your magazines swell and throw spores from turned pages. Put in a little stove and you can ride out the winter want-tos. In some, things have been done that God should have prevented. Some have saved marriages. Small mammals sleep in their underpinnings and black snakes hunt their reserves. I have seen their tin roofs catch light and become radiantly blank the way the sun erases the figures from the panels of an altarpiece every day at a certain time.
Published:
| Online 2005

Michael Chitwood
Michael Chitwood has published four books of poetry. The most recent, Gospel Road Going, was awarded the Roanoke-Chowan Prize for the best book by a North Carolinian. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Threepenny Review, The New Republic, Field, The Georgia Review, and numerous journals. (updated 2005)
Related Articles
It Runs in the Family
Poetry by Joshua Bennett
Meanwhile
Poetry by Tiana Nobile
My Exile Family
Poetry by D. Nurkse