Carey McHugh’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, and Tin House, among others. Her chapbook Original Instructions for the Perfect Preservation of Birds &c. was selected by Rae Armantrout for the Poetry Society of America’s 2008 New York Chapbook Fellowship. She lives and works in Manhattan.
This poem, “[You will come first as a sound],” has previously appeared in Gulf Coast, under the title “Open Brackets Closed Brackets.”