Let the Heart Hold Down the Breakage or the Caregiver’s Log

This magnificent work dwells in the struggle between death and dying.

This magnificent work dwells in the struggle between death and dying. The poet is the one who balances this weird difficulty. She is the caregiver keeping both alive. Through nights where days of dying begin with tissues, toothpicks, cries, pillows, sheets; the caregiver’s offerings to the patient never quite work. The panic of hitting nightfall with its galloping horses, rodeos and racetracks, and the Southwest ranges try to stay as truthful to the mother as they are to the daughter transcribing them, until these darkest of lyrics lie in the realm of the divine. –Fanny Howe

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Hybrid.