After many, many months, my book has a name: You Are Not Here.

It also (sort of) has a cover. Not sure when I can show it, but it's a really beautiful photograph. An image I had thought about while writing, actually...and my publisher came upon it without me even mentioning it. It's nice when things work out.

So, I am back from vacation, very rested, and eagerly waiting for notes on my second draft. For this draft, I did A LOT of new writing and moved around the order of many of the poems. That's sort of the beauty of writing in verse--it gives you the ability to shuffle things in a way that I don't think you can with prose.

Here's a sneak peak at a poem I really like:

I’m trying to decide what is worse.
Someone being gone,
but still out there,
or someone being gone forever,
dead.
I think someone being gone,
but still out there might be worse.
Then there’s always the chance,
the hoping,
the wondering
if things might change.
If maybe one day they’ll come back.
There’s also the wondering about
what their new life is like.
The life without you.
Are they more happy?
And if they are,
you’re left being sad,
wondering what it would be like
if you were happy with them.

But when someone is dead,
they’re dead.
They’re not coming back.
There is no second chance.
Death is a period
at the end of a sentence.
Someone gone, but still out there
is an ellipses . . . or a question
to be answered.