The Ether Dome

poems by

Katy Aisenberg

ISBN: 978-1-59948-993-3, 64 pages,  $14 (+ shipping)

Release Date: June 6, 2024

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Katy Aisenberg is a psychologist and writer who lives in Somerville MA. Her book on the literary theory of ekphrasis, Ravishing Images was published by Peter Lang. Dr Aisenberg was awarded the James Hearst Prize for poetry by Ilya Kaminsky for the title poem of this collection. Recently her poetry was published and interviewed in CARVE.

ETHER DOME by Katy Aisenberg reads like a sweeping epic of memory and curiosity. With a folkloric tone, these poems bring us from New Orleans flood to Garden of Eden, from American highways to American astronauts, from Henry James to Lazarus. Aisenberg’s odyssey asks us to consider deep attention to the present even as the meek wait to inherit everything, even as each new day appears like a white tourniquet. ~Joan Kwon Glass, Author of NIGHT SWIM (Diode Editions, 2022)

In The Ether Dome, Katy AIsenberg interrogates the heart’s familial and social relations. Like her mentor, Derek Walcott, Aisenberg is genius at crystalizing the moment of immanence with resonant imagery and memorable, musical phrasing. I am deeply moved by lines like: “Behind a window in this hotel room/the color of decanted wine/my life hangs in four bags. /My mind is a restless traveler.” Both intimate and bold, these poems are written by a poet in full possession of her powers. ~Stuart Dischell

THE HEAD OF THE TABLE

In two months, spring has come and gone.
Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July
rise through your ashes like fool’s gold,
your lashes flutter in comatose sleep.
Come back, feet turned in like a pigeon-toed child,
your hands obediently stalled at your sides.

I wrap indulgence around me
and eat of comfort foods.
The author of the plot of my life is dead.
The heroine sits at the head of the table
curling her hair, counting her lovers,
waiting for the languorous pages to fill.

I am no longer a daughter,
I am not yet a mother.
I am a woman whose mother has died.
Should I muffle myself in sullen blacks
or dress whiter than hospital sheets?

MY DAUGHTER AS HUCK FINN

Now my daughter can string three words together
she only needs me to listen and nod.
Velvet chairs are filled. The gold curtains are drawn.
The thick white film that coated her arrival
melts away as she sings.

Shall she stride the Sussex Downs,
toss in a boat in the Irish Sea
or sit with two arms crossed in a bar,
lay her head on her hands and sob
for the mess of us all that first love brings?

She has broken free from the steeplechase.
The curry-red fox streaks ahead.
When I tell her to stay, she breaks for the door.
If I reach for a book, she slaps my hand.
It is a wonder we survive the days at all.

When words desert her like fickle friends,
slipping for cover in the dark,
she mutters her day in my ear
removing my pearl earring
so nothing interferes.

She sleeps like Huck Finn alone on his raft
hands linked behind her head. All she needs is grass
between her lips and a lazy river to ride.
The church clock strikes nine. We turn on our bed.
And go on being just like this.

THE GRAVEDIGGER’S DOG

On Sunday it was the anniversary of my mother’s death.
Now they are both dead, and I hope, together.
Canada geese pick their way over my parents’ graves
like paving stones, without regard for bones
or ash, but with the awkward formality
of birds out of their element.
Two mallards swam by and in their cautious
argument I heard the familiar sound
of marital discord. The pond, their bed.
They circled the small island several times and I lay down
on the grass and felt the Easter rain
and uncertain breath of spring pass over me.
Nothing weighs me down.
It has been fourteen years since we recognized in each other
something so precious, which was not us,
but who we made together. She’s beautiful and eleven.
The geese, startled by the gravedigger’s dog, rise up.