Suture by Melissa Eleftherion

New Release!

Suture by Melissa Eleftherion
ISBN-13: 978-1-943899-23-4
Paperback, 84 pages
First Edition, 2026
$15.00 + t/s/h

From the back of the book:
“What a book! It's like a walk in the woods, wherein you
overturn a rock and find all these tiny treasures. In
Melissa Eleftherion’s Suture, a series of erasures that
examine “the abject,” the speaker is “willing to let /
silence / confess.” Caesuras are heavy with mystery.
Page space pulses with not-quite-stated knowledge that
slowly reveals itself over the course of the poetic
sequence. The speaker “knew a violent house.” The
antagonist “[is] tower & / tremble.” Marriage is “blood
in [a] glass of white worms.” However the speaker is “a
fugitive / in love with / being soft,” and they are
determined to stay that way, even if it requires
forgiveness. Eleftherion has chosen an unusual way to
tell a tale with this assemblage of poems, which just
makes it all the more unforgettable.”
— Jill Khoury, author of earthwork

“Melissa Eleftherion starts with "how we're taught / to
contain / the abject" and takes us through a journey
where "family / was / a/ secret war." These erasure
poems depict a struggle through trauma, doubt, and
worth to come out the other side "resolve[d] / to
matter." Suture gives us a well-crafted, important
narrative that will stay with us.”
— David Harrison Horton, author of Necessary

A suture stitches a wound closed, but what is left after
that wound heals—a scar? Or a memory? In this new
collection, Melissa Eleftherion excavates the Flowers in
the Attic series to tell her own story in spare, haunting
poems (or …sutures”) that detail the lasting trauma of a
violent childhood. Full of striking images, these erasures
capture the loneliness of living with a secret and how
only knowing love …as a treacherous undercurrent”
continues to shape the speaker. However, the speaker
never gives up her search for awe and wonder, and vows
to …smash the glass box” while learning how to be soft
and forgive. Through these many sutures, the wound
heals but is not forgotten.
—Gina Myers, author of Works and Days

"In her third book, Eleftherion continues their study of
the relationship between self and environment.
Beginning with a metaphor of ammonite sutures — the
seams that form between chambers of an ammonite’s
spiral shell — Eleftherion follows a child’s perspective as
their body and mind develop, leaving traces on the
page. A subtle book excavated from the young adult
horror novel Flowers in the Attic, Suture is haunted by the
pathways of trauma and growth.”
—Jessica Smith, author of How to Know the Flowers