Poetr. Paper, perfect bound, 64 pp
$14.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-584

Dominant Hand is a world filled with the pantomime of love, the trickster coyote, and the conflict between widowed father and concerned grandparents. These poems are set in the seemingly ordinary places of life, but they are not ordinary; here Kerlikowske reveals profound truths that shock and amaze, and put smiles on our faces.

Domestic
by Elizabeth Kerlikowske

Here she sits in her ivory tower
         Here she stands in her kitchen
                                             Aren’t they the same?
Scraping dried egg from a plate
Deleting excess punctuation

    And before that bent over a tub
    where the two creations squirm
    barely able to contain their joy
    at being naked, wet, together like
                                              rubbery book-ends

Sweeping dried leaves and pine needles from hard
                                                                    wood floors
a revision of sorts

                                                Years go by
                                            The children leave
                                     The tub always a shower now

Poems keep coming
Stories
She doesn’t always recognize them
           like the children’s friends who stop by at Christmas
           Who are you?

Spaces between lines
Decentralized narrative

    Mohawk, mullet, crew cut

                      That’s Trent, Mom.
           Didn’t he used to be a sonnet?

Elizabeth Kerlikowske grew up in forests and on lakes in western Michigan. She earned an MA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her BA and Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. Currently, Kerlikowske is an English instructor at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan, where she is the mother of three Scrabble players.

Elizabeth also has chapbooks published by March Street Press