I write to you about
The Life with tear tracks on my cheeks. Not even old ones, because every time I look back at one of the pieces that make up Carrie Fountain's third collection of poetry, the whole process starts anew: eyes welling up, looking toward the ceiling to attempt composure, reaching, defeated, for the Kleenex.
With a pink construction paper cover and the title and author name written in charmingly gloopy glitter (a heart-twisting nod to the foregone Valentine's Day card glitter in one of the book's many stunners, "Will You?"),
The Life may not seem like an obvious weeper. But from the very first poem, "The End," which chronicles both the hanging of ornaments on a miniature tree and the moment of Christ's birth, Fountain is skillfully tying minute, personal experiences to our biggest quandaries about human nature to devastating effect. Of Mary and Jesus at the first Christmas, she writes, "They will meet for the first time. / She'll have those breasts until the end / of her life. He'll have that mouth until / the end of his."