Kathryn Merwin

Pretender

It’s October again, and the world is wide & flat
between us. I think of the heat-swollen nights, kaleidoscoped

with night terrors, jigsaw girls
in the starving jungle. Our legs grew

towards the sun. Your branches curved

around mine. Your hands were always cold.
Another October, you ran from me,

pink fingers, baby’s breath steaming
cloud-puddles into sky. The fence that separates before

and since. I tear stitches
from leather, shout raw

into the turning trees. If only it had been me.
If only my legs had been longer.

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Kathryn Merwin is a writer currently based in Baltimore. Her work has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Passages North, Hobart, The Journal, Sugar House, Prairie Schooner and Blackbird. She has read and/or reviewed for the Bellingham Review, WomenArts Quarterly and the Adroit Journal, and holds a MFA in poetry from Western Washington University. Her first collection, Womanskin, is available from CutBank Books. Connect with her at www.kathrynmerwin.com.