Callie Siskel’s Two Minds is neither minimalist nor maximalist, but the spareness and efficiency speak volumes—and sometimes speak in long lines, sometimes short—making an art of saying as little as possible, but crucially no less. What’s left out presses upon what remains, and what remains is both substantial and hard as stone. Here’s the beginning of “Invitation,” which begins with an invitation:
My initials curled inside the oval like three robins
crowding a tree hollow.
The cardstock was beveled, the envelopes lined in airy pink paper.
My father was dying
quietly like the sound of his pen lifting
then touching down again.
