Caroline Noble Whitbeck's manuscript, Our Classical Heritage: A Homing Device, was the 2006 winner of Switchback Books' Gatewood Prize as selected by judge Arielle Greenberg. She holds a BA in Classics (Latin) from Harvard College and an MFA from Brown University. Born and raised in New York City, she currently resides in Philadelphia, where she is working toward a PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Her short play "Woof" was produced off-Broadway as part of the Young Playwrights Festival 2000, and her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Horse Less Review, Lumina, Elimae, Cab/Net, and Word For/Word.
Valise
All day the birds
annotate
dream of
attention.
The heat is
real,
the sidewalks rote.
There is voltage,
trash, and
in-betweenness
to skirt. Carry your own
storm
over reservoir, the joggers'
clockwork,
the busying rim. Unpack
your prayer to
unlatch.
Soon sleep will.
Riding
the rails.
Hello
hello now
to the breathing
vestibule. The
icebox
hum. Water
runs, what
sustains.
Anything
to find them
so
suitable for
framing. Home
now
Even this.
Each mother
please. The bolo tie scuds
down. Please stab
at pale,
ordinary
vegetables in the
TV dark, please roll
the blind
thunder down, family
battening down
the night, buttoning
up.