Cover Letter
/Seth Clabough
I am writing to express my interest in
engine oil leaked onto a parking spot,
the battered truck of the man selling cantaloupes,
the stain of deserted shopping malls,
the carcasses of decaying beasts.
In my current position,
I visit the graves of strangers,
lie naked in tall grasses,
observe, near the reservoir,
moss on a low slung rock wall.
This, and my familiarity with
the grief of 3am and
unresolved pixelations,
make me the perfect candidate
to believe, of your company, almost anything.
Additionally, the mezcal on my father’s breath,
my mother drunk behind the wheel,
far-off tassels of campfire smoke,
are qualifications beneficial
to your organization’s success.
Thank you for considering the
smell of rotting tobacco barns,
the rattle of a washing machine,
a sick dog yelping from the ditch,
how I parachute into nightmares
& look forward to hearing from you.
Author’s Note: On the one hand, I think “Cover Letter” captures the absurd juxtaposition of the bland, formulaic ways we often must present ourselves professionally and the quirky, wonderous wierdos we are underneath. On the other hand, I think the poem asks us to wonder, What if we thought of our strange preoccupations, musings, and attention to odd, seemingly inconsequential details, as a type of real job for writers and poets? As usual, I wasn’t aware I was doing either of those until I completed the poem and read back over it a few days later. Depending on how it’s read, the piece can make me laugh or it can make me sad. That’s probably a good thing.
Seth Clabough’s debut novel, All Things Await, was nominated for the 2017 Library of Virginia Book Award for Fiction, and his creative work appears in places like Blackbird, Smokelong Quarterly, Barely South, West Trade Review, Magma Poetry, Litro Magazine and in numerous other journals and magazines. He lives in an old farmhouse near a peach orchard in Crozet, Virginia, and teaches English and Creative Writing at Randolph-Macon College.
