Idlewild
I. I find you in the soft wind at the edge of the wood at dusk. Your bones are China patterned, they blue your skin light as the western sky. II. I am a quarter ghost on my father’s side – the girls and I inherited a lightness, a certain shade of moon- white falls across our forearms. We are always somewhere, disappearing. III. The garden is lined with strange bodies – broken mirrors, dead geraniums, weeds matted like baby hairs. The stars spin in their terrible waltz and I laugh. IV. You once unfolded into me – a body, full and blooming with darkness. I sank my hands into your ribs, painted my arms with the heat of night. V. I find you in the cold snap behind the shed at sunrise. You pour through the grass, soak into soil. (You are always somewhere, disappearing.)
Kathryn Merwin is a native of Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Booth, Blackbird, So to Speak, and Sugar House Review, among others. She has been awarded the Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize for Poetry, the Blue Earth Review Annual Poetry Prize, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is currently pursuing her MFA through Western Washington University.