Ring Finger

Years after, my mother
explained you beat
everyone equally, even
the real sons. What a relief.
You stepped further
into each one of us,
until you reforged
our faces, animated
our bodies and continued
to swing. I looked
through you to my mother,
and saw a dead girl shining
through her ring finger,
banded and bandaged,
sewing a torn-up jumper: 
you slipping in and out
of the same worn fabric,
as if the rent could be mended.


by Matthew Cook

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Matthew Cook earned his BA and was the recipient of the Stewart Prize at UC San Diego for his creative writing. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was both a Maytag Fellow and an Alberta Kelly Fellow in Poetry. His poems have appeared in Assaracus, Penumbra, The Squaw Valley Review, and elsewhere. He has worked as everything from a legal researcher to a writing tutor to a barista. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is currently revising a full-length collection of poems.