Slant
which codes the luminous tree at your gate
which broad night renders its own wild leap
and to name the record of that as MEMOIR, i.e.
exemption from certainty,
spilt onto the belly
whose girth is a path through the dunes
this is allowed as is, as is
__losing the name of the organ you lost to necessity
the small pinging sadness of that:
you, veiled so deeply in each poem
that for a moment, I forget the truth of your body
________
the blast radius
the dearth of guilt
the cipher that shifts
from line to line
after a threat, a wait; leaving
separately from any crowd who knows us;
morality a thing to be caught
and no man born with it
________
MEMOIR:
form of doubles, of squinting, of lifting the dress;
the skittering of years
one woman melted
down from two
repeat: your crooked teeth / a pattern of birds
as doubt, the chatter under our time
the mistake of strangers believing me
your wife
________
as I remember it / all this is true
-Sophie Klahr
***
Sophie Klahr’s first full-length collection, Meet Me Here At Dawn, is forthcoming from YesYes Books (2016). She lives in Los Angeles. sophieklahr.com
