There’s a catch on the pressure
cooker lid, crucial as the one on autoclave,
 
coffin. A golden latch on a Faberge egg,
and hidden ones in each of my aunt’s cunning
 
puzzle boxes, secret pins
locked out every cousin but one.
 
 
 

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Lynn Pattison’s poems have appeared in The Notre Dame Review, Rhino, Atlanta Review, Harpur Palate, Rattle and Poetry East, among others, and been anthologized in several venues. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, she is the author of three collections: tesla’s daughter (March St. Press, 2005); Walking Back the Cat (Bright Hill Press, 2006) and Light That Sounds Like Breaking (Mayapple Press, 2006). In past years, Pattison was awarded an Irving S. Gilmore Emerging Artist Grant through the local branch of the Michigan Arts Council, and a writing residency at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest IL. She lives and writes in Michigan.