White
Nightgown
Poems
White
Nightgown
Poems
Megan Gannon
Copyright © 2014 by Megan Gannon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).
First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62720-033-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62720-034-9
Design by Andrew Grahn
Apprentice House
Loyola University Maryland
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
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www.ApprenticeHouse.com
For Manny
Acknowledgements
Best American Poetry 2006—“Westering” as “List of First Lines”
Crazyhorse— “Definition,” “Deep Sea”
Gulf Coast— “White Nightgown”
Laurel Review—“Testament”
Louisville Review—“Sonnet”
New Orleans Review—“Shade”
Notre Dame Review— “The Names of Birds,” “Etymology of Evening”
Pleiades— “Atlantean”
Poetry Daily March 2, 2007— “She Wearies of Wise Children”
Poetry Kanto (Japan)—“Eve’s Excuse” as “First Excuse,” “Adam’s Defense”as “First Defense,” “Late April,” “Well Water,” “Go back” as “Monologue”
Seneca Review—“Aquifer”
Sweet; A Literary Confection—“You Were Not There,” “History,” “Vows”
Sonora Review—“Myth”
Third Coast—“Westering”as “List of First Lines,” “Selenographia,” “She Wearies of Wise Children”
The Untidy Season; An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets—“Weather,” “Dungeness,” “The Dead, Dreaming,” “Daphne Digging In”
Verse Daily April 26, 2006—“Testament;” December 17, 2008—“Adam’s Defense”as “First Defense”
Table of Contents
She Wearies of Wise Children...55
Go back before the body []
who borrows your breath
[] and leaves you– []
before the dream of falling,
drowning, drifting—
dream of your life as you’ve lived it.
Deep Sea
What does the band
sound like in water
waking, the tempo a changing
wave