Constructive

By Heather McHugh b. 1948 Heather McHugh

You take a rock, your hand is hard.

You raise your eyes, and there's a pair

of small beloveds, caught in pails.

The monocle and eyepatch correspond.

You take a glove, your hand is soft.

The ocean floor was done

in lizardskin. Around a log or snag

the surface currents run

like lumber about a knot. A boat

is bent to sea—we favor the medium

we're in, our shape's

around us. It takes time.

At night, the bed alive, what

teller of truth could tell

the two apart? Lover, beloved,

hope is command. Your hand

is given, when you take a hand.

Source: Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968-1993 (Wesleyan University Press, 1994)

Biography

Poet Heather McHugh’s work is noted for its rhetorical gestures, sharp puns and interest in the materials of language itself—her self-described determination is “to follow every surge of language, every scrap and flotsam.” Describing her work in the Boston Review, poet and critic Richard Howard alleged that “most of McHugh’s poems end in a spurt, as they proceed in a slather, of just such astonishment as is bestowed—afforded—by . . .

Continue reading this biography