Sitting Room and Woodshed (The “Lost” Nutshell)

by Jessica Purdy

—Deceased: Eugene Black, town drunkard. Questioned: Winifred Black, his daughter.

Reported October 25th, 1947

Rage. White noise of gunshot Westerns. Radio stories and finally, silence. I’m hearing the
ringing. After his bender. The black phone off the hook. Dial. Tone. Of voice. My father, the
known town drunk. Yells before blackout. Snores before dying. Blasted. Plastered. Loaded.
Delirium drowned out by white noise of gunshot Westerns. Rifle hung on spikes. The woodshed
sawdust on his shoes. On the sunrise patterned linoleum. The wood stove kindling scattered. A
couch armrest cracked. Father fallen back. To sleep or death. Whichever one groans. Drones on
and on. Dangerous drunk. I’m overwhelmed. Juggling jobs. While he drank, I worked and took
care of mother. Mother out of earshot. Muffled shouts. White noise of gunshot Westerns. Radio.
Telephone. Rifle report. A little liquor left in the bottle. The dog points its muzzle towards the
afterlife. The hidden scent of blood.

Note on “Sitting Room and Woodshed”:

This poem is named after one of Frances Glessner Lee’s “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.” Originally, there were twenty “Nutshells,” which Lee meticulously crafted. These crime scene dioramas were meant to help police officers hone their observation skills. “Woodshed and Sitting Room” had been missing for decades until it was discovered in 2005 in a storage area of Lee’s summer home at The Rocks in New Hampshire. In my chapbook The Adorable Knife, it is my intention to honor Frances Glessner Lee’s own attention to detail in crafting these, as well as to imagine possible “solutions” by giving voice to the stories told in the crime scenes. The poem appearing here in -ette does not appear in my chapbook, and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to share it.

Jessica Purdy holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Her poems and flash fiction have appeared in Litro, Gone Lawn, Radar, Ran Off with the Star Bassoon, The Night Heron Barks, Gargoyle, and SurVision. Her books STARLAND and Sleep in a Strange House were both released by Nixes Mate in 2017 and 2018. Her two recent chapbooks are: The Adorable Knife: poems based on The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (Grey Book Press), and You’re Never the Same: Ekphrastic Poems (Seven Kitchens Press).