What Trudy Knows and Other Poems
About this Book
What Trudy Knows and Other Poems follows the ground broken by Knute Skinner’s last collection The Bears and Other Poems. An unusual group of poems – each a brief telling of a moment in the life of one or more imaginary characters. The poems probe a variety of human relationships.
As Aidan Murphy wrote of The Bears…. “A stunning collection, full of mystery, cross-purpose, weird and tragic characters… reminiscent of the short stories of the American Raymond Carver loaded with shocks and unspoken nuances of dirty realism.” What Trudy Knows continues this radical departure, with verve.
Publication Date: Wednesday, November 30, 2001
paper €9.00 $11.50
Read a poem from this book
What Trudy Knows
I find myself mourning
but not for anyone we have buried
and not for the old neighborhood
or my lost youth
or any of that crap.
To make no bones about it
I am mourning myself.
Trudy doesn’t get it at all.
When she lays her head on my chest
and her yellow hair lies loose
all over my stomach,
I still turn over her way
and I do my homework.
But she knows it isn’t the same–
Even as I enter her body she knows
I am going through the motions.
It’s easier at work.
I can laugh at my buddies’ jokes
and tell a few of my own
when we break for coffee
and no one’s the wiser.
The boss as always can see
I clock in on time.
But I know and Trudy knows
that the man who took up space in this world
under my name
has slipped out the door without so much
as a by-your-leave.
How she sticks it I don’t know
but we have our meals as usual
and we visit her folks as usual
and we go to the movies or go bowling
and we fight about money we don’t have
for the new baby
and it’s only the odd time that I catch her
looking at me when she doesn’t see I see her
and I know she knows.