Michael Walsh’s sophomore poetry collection, Creep Love, explores a family contending with a complex and ongoing crisis, the aftermath of which creates a shockwave that reverberates through these poems.
Stories, half-truths, and lies combine into a disturbing fable: A young pregnant woman flees her abusive boyfriend only to discover with terror that he is focused on her younger sister. When her younger sister later gives birth to her abusive ex’s other sons, the unsettling presence of the child’s father becomes unavoidable, and the family soon forces the first son to become a family secret. These poems give witness to the fallout, demonstrating how love can be charged with something ultimately unknowable.