"A stunning overlap of a lost boy and lost landscape through the lens of a gifted poet's magical linguistic and storytelling abilities." -VICTORIA CHANG

John McCarthy is the author of one previous collection, Ghost Country, which was named a Best Poetry Book of 2016 by the Chicago Review of Books. McCarthy is the 2016 winner of The Pinch Literary Award in Poetry, and his work has appeared in Best New Poets 2015, Hayden's Ferry Review, Passages North, Sycamore Review, Zone 3, and in anthologies such as New Poetry from the Midwest 2017. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and serves as an editor of RHINO magazine and the Quiddity international literary journal and public radio program.

Contents
Switchgrass
I.
Hymn
Pie Tins behind Porch Lights
Portrait of the Only Child with Tire Swing
Self-Portrait as Stolen Bike
North End I
As If the Shirt Were Standing up Straight, Hand Raised
Hunger
Word Problem
Cremation
Noise Falling Backward
North End II
Callousing
Self-Portrait as Home Run Ball
The Scarecrow's Reflection Is an Only Child
Bloodmeal
Little Ticks of Blood and the Taste of Dead Leaves
Until I Learn That Please Is the Color of a Bruise
North End III
Vandalism
II.
Flyover Country
I. [If You Stay Long Enough]
II. [Of Motherhood, a Fierce Drowning]
III. [Long Day of the Factory Belt]
IV. [The Taste of Copper]
V. [To Sever Anything]
VI. [To Riven Stillness]
VII. [Renders and Yields]
III.
Scared Violent Like Horses
The Decapitation of Paul Bunyan
Thin Napkins Sprinkled with Salt
North End IV
Last Rites
Self-Portrait as Psychiatric Ward
Definitions of Body
Our Mother Stolen in a Pothole
North End V
Baptism
Daguerreotype
Confirmation
North End VI
What I Mean When I Say I Don't Box Anymore
A Brief History of Friends
On Fighting
Love is Like a Horse Set on Fire from the Inside
Wild Vision of What Is Real
Sometimes I Call the Damage Healing
And Other Acts of Mercy
Upon Learning That Years Later the World Did Not End,
I Was Finally Able to Talk about the Wild Horses
Guide and Guard Us Far and Near
Notes
Acknowledgments