In Caitlin Thomson’s Incident Reports (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2014), the moon no longer appears in a post-apocalyptic night sky. Neither do the stars for that matter, but no one is counting these missing “bright holes” when loved ones have been “summoned” or go missing.
The theme of absence dominates the first half of the book. In the surprising and specific “Other Lovers’ Letters,” Thomson illustrates even in times of catastrophe and devastation, we navigate relationships and observe minutia.
“Dear Alexander, a reminder
to turn the stove off
should not be necessary.”
“Katrina, we have talked for some time
now about light and I must say
that I find the flicker of you appealing.”
Dear Jasper, teasing a sleeping girl
is not advised.”
Initially, there is a fear of madness, a flurry of locking doors, no discourse, as people begin to disappear. Birds, (and their songs, as Thomson points out) are gone, replaced with small rodent parades scurrying down the sidewalk or ants swarming in a basement. The humans that are left search for their place in a world without dreams. Here, in the titular poem, “Incident Reports: The Vanishing” absences are logged in case file format:
“Case File: No.1
My husband was washing dishes,
his hands in those yellow rubber gloves,
the water running a hum.
I looked up to a sink full of soap,
limp gloves on tiles.”
“Case File: No.7
The stars thick above me,
Fireflies coming out of the marsh,
mating. I leaned over to shake
my wife awake in her sleeping bag,
but the synthetic plaid
covered no one. I waited
two days, smoking
till my pack ran out.”
Not everyone disappears, unplanned. One speaker, unhappy, runs away from home and is just included in “the missing.” A house burns down. People are comforted by the milk man who still visits once a week. Interestingly, there is a paradigm shift halfway through these case file stanzas. The point of view changes. One speaker mentions missing a good conversation about politics or pie making – how everyone feels forced to talk about loneliness. Slowly, strangers are not afraid of “touch.” Many people from one block crowd into the same apartment building, sharing bedrooms. By Case File 21, there is a call to rejoice:
“Damn your tears and tissue,
you survived, celebrate! Have beer,
smoke, shoot out the windows
of the house, now empty, next door.”
Rioting is alluded to, but also something else- the desire to overcome “the vanishing” — to embrace life again. In the poem “The First Night,” characters left on earth cope by burying one another under leaves- almost child-like. Once safe under leaves and needles with orange sweater sleeves tied together,
“the longings we once held for mattresses, refrigerators, lamps,
replaced by lakes and loons before the sun rose.
Knitting scraps of wool into sweaters.”
Burgeoning acceptance of the situation evolves. Symbolically, people lose the desire “to write home.” A communing with nature erupts. Children burn their clothes and spend hours deer hunting – but “They smile more now, teeth shocking white.” (From At Sailors’ Delight, Take Warning.”) Maybe it is in the forgetting of baggage that true happiness lies. Our ability to endure is so human. Whereas the first poem in Incident Reports (“Space is Not Equal to Y or X,”) the speaker wakes “to the world constructed without dreams,” by the last poem in the collection, “Daybreak,”
“We caught the sun in our throats,
swallowed it for breakfast.
Dreamed of the white horse…
in a barn with cathedral windows…”
Humans dream again, repurpose a barn, carry light in their pockets. Maybe the god they waited for isn’t coming, but at least they are happy.
is the author of three chapbooks: Every Her Dies (ELJ Publications), Clotheshorse (Finishing Line Press, 2014), and Backyard Poems (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in public places in Iowa City. Recent work can be seen / is forthcoming at Dressing Room Poetry Journal, Toad Suck Review, Red Savina Review, Toad: the Journal, The Poetry Storehouse, Quail Bell Magazine, Flapperhouse, and Hobart. She also writes for Insecurity Ragazine.
