The Scabbard of Her Throat, poems by Bernadette Geyer

Bernadette Geyer's first full-length collection, The Scabbard of Her Throat, was selected by Cornelius Eady for publication in the Hilary Tham Capital Collection, an imprint of The Word Works, in Bethesda, Maryland.

"The poems in Bernadette Geyer's The Scabbard of Her Throat are saturated by touch: fingers on a throat, hand on a door, wasp, clasped to a cicada's back, fever to bodies, daughters to mothers, mythologies to linoleum. Her lines soothed, they bruised, they entered my ear and held."

--Cornelius Eady, author of Brutal Imagination

"The poet-speaker of these poised, versatile poems says, 'I've begun/to believe in the rightness of belief ... every falseness/has its moment--/however brief--of sacred truth.' She does not begrudge anyone his or her illusions. She's a student of luck, fairy tales, and magic, and of domestic life with its myriad attachments. Her poems are struck with the grace of a disillusionment, which is not at all bitter but invites imagination to join with the quotidian. In the special, liminal space of art, she makes her poems carefully, honestly, and with devotion."

--Dana Roeser, author of In the Truth Room

"Adventures in daughterhood, motherhood, womanhood, loverhood, poethood. Adventures in adjusting to life ('The longer I live, the less I believe/in the singular rightness/of what I have chosen to believe') and in sifting through so many details of life the poet sometimes feels she's become Marcel Proust. Often funny, often touching, often reassuring, often delightful, these poems are always humane and wise. Enjoy the eloquence. Enjoy the craft. Enjoy the ride."

--John Surowiecki, author of Flies

Sample poems:

THUMBELINA'S MOTHER SPEAKS

~ To Thumbelina

How many nights I knelt befouled by stars

in that garden, yet my belly still refused

to swell. No husband—just this body.

Not even knowledge of the ways of men.

I don’t recall the color of the seed,

that witch-gift planted by my anxious hands.

And little does it matter now the color

of that bloom. You were my blossom-born,

emerging from a womb that wasn’t mine.

As soon as I inhaled your pollen-scented

hair, I understood that I would lose you:

all children are but born to leave.

Not once did I hear you call me Mother.

Know this: after you I never sought another.

I BELIEVE

~ for Tammy Faye, 1942-2007

The longer I live, the less I believe

in the singular rightness

of what I have chosen to believe.

And I’ve begun

to believe in the rightness of belief,

in general.

I’ve begun to believe that, maybe,

I’ve been wrong

all along about Chaucer’s Pardoner,

his bags of stones

and sheep-bone relics. Maybe,

sometimes, the ends

do justify the means, and every falseness

has its moment—

however brief—of sacred truth.

Then again, maybe belief

in a “prosperity gospel” is simply easier

than belief in nothing.

So pardon me

as I gather my precious bones

into this bag

I call body. These penance-worn rags

no relics. And me?

No saint anyone should believe in.