You spend your life
perfecting the form
you make for a chair.
The chosen wood,
sturdy for sitting
by the window
in the spare room.
You rest your eyes
on the bedpost
and remember
working out each
ridge and slope,
like sense memory
of every lover’s
body, ingrained.
The quiet space
of your mind
comes alive each
time you hear
warblers sing
from the perch
you measured
out in the width
of your finger,
pencil tucked
behind your ear.
You listen to this
music, splitting
wood open –
like pulling wedges
out of an orange,
perfecting the form.

–Matthew Haughton,
Bee-coursing Box
Accents Publishing

More from Bee-Coursing Box and Matthew Haughton:

• “Night”
• “After a Death in a Country Home”
• “The Broom Girl”
• “If it Hurts its Probably Good”: An Interview Part 1
• “It’s All about Context”: An Interview Part 2

Matthew Haughton was born in Colorado in 1977. At an early age, his family returned to eastern Kentucky, where his lineage stretches back over a century in the region. Matthew is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. Most recently, he was a finalist in the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning’s Next Great Writer Competition. His poetry has appeared in literary magazines such as Kentucky Monthly, Still: The Journal, and The Heartland Review. This is his first published collection of poems. He lives and works as an artist and educator in Lexington Kentucky.