HOW TO BURY A BOY AT SEA

Goldstein’s debut poetry collection addresses the sexual abuse of a child by a family member and the difficult process of healing.

In these works—many of which were previously published in the poetry journals The Laurel Review, Rust + Moth, and others—a young boy is sexually victimized by his older brother and goes through various stages of dealing with the trauma as an adult. In one poem, the speaker expresses anger at his parents for their eventual reaction to the abuse, which continued for more than two years: “Why can’t you see I crack & cry & break & bleed? / I am the egg. He is the fox” (“Fragile”). He also deals with internalized feelings of blame and shame (“Growth”), expresses a feeling of disconnection from his Jewish faith in “Wandering In Search of Truth” (“Where was Your parting of the sea / while I was being torn apart?”), and tells of seeking help in therapy (“This Is My Story”). Readers may find these emotional works about trauma and its aftermath to be difficult to read, but throughout this collection, the poet skillfully keeps the poems short, which makes them easier to process while also giving them a feeling of forward momentum. Often, at a poem’s conclusion, readers will have the feeling that an insight has prepared the speaker for a new phase of a healing journey; in short, the works very often give the reader hope of better things ahead for the speaker. By closing his collection with poems with phrases such as, “We are the testaments to the fact that gates can rust & not break. / …. / Hollowed-out hearts can be refilled, remade, renewed” (“We Are the Flowers in That Good Earth”) and “The wind blows & I am unafraid” (“The Aftertaste of the Wind”), Goldstein leaves readers on an optimistic note and with the feeling that daunting obstacles can be overcome.

A harrowing and ultimately inspiring set of poems.