Down the street where I grew up, lived an elderly neighbor who adored bones. Her guest room was a playground for memories of flesh. With death tangy in my mouth, I’d sneak over for lemon bars and the chance to rub my fingers over immortality, caressing its things that could be seen and smelled. Shelves and tabletops were crowded with calcified clocks for time—pelvises in dark patina, platters of teeth or vertebrae, crusted skulls in drop jaw still life, and swaying in her closet, an oddfellow skeleton I named Stinky Cheeseman after my favorite book. It was then I was schooled in the delights of uncanny and for what’s left over when the future comes after you. She’d tell me to listen for angels that come down from their ladders. I’d nod and whisper into every eye hole.
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Rikki Santer’s collection Resurrection Letter was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and Shepherd’s Hour won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books. In 2023, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year.