House of Fact, House of Ruin: Poems

Tom Sleigh’s brilliant new collection is “full of the wonder and eloquence driving profound poetry” (Los Angeles Times)

You’ve got to put your pants on in the house of fact.
And in the house of fact, when you take off your shirt,
you can hear your shirt cry out, Facts are the floor, facts
are how you make the right side talk to the left.

I’m washing my naked belly clean, and doing it with dignity.
I’m turning around, trying to see the filthiness
that keeps making me filthy.

—from “House of Fact, Ho...