There’s Something Elemental In The Way You Say Goodbye
poems by
Carol Matos
~88 pages, $15 (+ shipping)
Projected Release Date: September/October 2026
An Advance Sale Discount price of $9 (+ shipping) is available HERE prior to press time. This price is not available anywhere else or by check. The check price is $13.50/book (which includes shipping & sales tax) and should be sent to: Main Street Rag, 12180 Skyview Drive, Edinboro, PA 16412.
PLEASE NOTE: Ordering in advance of the release date entitles the buyer to a discount. It does not mean the book will ship before the date posted above and the price only applies to copies ordered through the Main Street Rag Online Bookstore.
Carol Matos is the author of The Hush Before the Animals Attack (Main Street Rag, 2013). Her poetry has appeared in ROOM, Columbia Journal, RHINO, The Chattahoochee Review, Barrelhouse, and The Potomac Review, among others. She was a semifinalist for the Spoon River Poetry Review Editors’ Prize and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Formerly a photographer with exhibitions in New York City and Europe, she now serves as Vice President for Administration at the Manhattan School of Music.
From fossils and rainforests to rounds of hide and seek, There’s Something Elemental In The Way You Say Goodbye feels both panoramic and microscopic at once. Like John Keats before her, Carol Matos embraces negative capability, confronting the most unknowable questions about life and death with an unflinching stare. She asks, “Is this deep stirring / a glimpse into our universe?” And it’s easy to believe that Matos can show us the way. The poet is as comfortable mining what it means to be a grandparent playing pretend as to be a monarch searching for milkweed. An extraordinary new collection. ~Erica Wright, author of A Buyer’s Guide to the Afterlife
There’s Something Elemental in the Way You Say Goodbye is a profound meditation on life. Matos crafts verses that draw us into an intimate and, at times, tumultuous world. Each poem calls on us to live in the moment in spite of our deepest anxieties, and I find myself returning to poem after poem in the hopes of heeding Matos’s inspirational call. ~Vaughn M. Watson, author of going out & being normal
An Origami Pattern Arises
I am an ecosystem
illusive microbes
inside me a thousand times
smaller than a millimeter,
on earth from the beginning.
A child’s words bend me
as we read about a cat’s tricks.
She asks, what are those folds
on your neck? I fold and unfold
and from this complex folding
my shape transforms
into a combination of layers
into a flexibility of parts
without breaking. I explain,
that’s what happens when you get old,
but she insists, you have to fight
with all your might not to get old.
I reply, no one tries harder than me!
She probes, we can meet again
up there if you believe. I don’t know
if believing matters. Like a compass
moves without touch I know
I can’t stop dark matter from drawing
the universe back to where it came from.
A Linear Accelerator
One tiny piece of the universe,
the child explains mysteries.
Hidden under a sheet,
we imagine a desert tent.
She huddles close, whispering,
I want to be alone with you.
I grasp original symmetry—
an unexpected perfection.
When she finds my lipstick,
she wants me to keep a secret.
She is absolute zero protons
moving at the speed of light,
steering towards collision.
Smashing particles together—
she showers me with super matter.
I look around her toy-strewn room
and can’t detect any debris.
Then we play without words, not wanting
to wake the wide-eyed
Polar Bear asleep on her bed.
Seafaring
My son holds his newborn, and vents unfasten,
releasing a power that smashes time’s arrangement.
Remnants of my past breathe down my neck,
linger, then splinter. The floor plummets
and I’m between falling and diving, stretching
my fragile habitat through dense meadows
of underwater grasslands and oceanic currents.
Along coral reefs, I swim with sea horses.
An enclave opens, the inevitable.
I’m an ancient ship builder, assembling
and fastening planks of wood together,
paving the way for voyage. Swallowing
only light, I float to the rim of the sea
and send a message to my son—
your pearl of the world is born—I pray
to consequences that I’m an eternal sketch
on what lies ahead, his belief in our blood
and in the ways of water.
The End of the Cretaceous Period
Age triggers primal scenes
the grainy intimacy of one
or an unlikely teenage flash
plays out in full force
my mind urges me
to review gasps and seeds
I want a future
to explore unknown terrain
before the synchronized
spawning of coral reefs stops
before I’m aligned with the reign
of the dinosaurs ending
when the sky radiated
and hot vapor spread
across the planet
animals and plants collapsed
my heat comes from within
me crossing the threshold
of everyday landscapes
like a marine turtle under water
feeling earth’s fire knowing
I can’t escape the dwarfing
of time I wonder how long
it takes life to recover
