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We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
This ravishing is not
the cipher in the grass
occluding the sun.
Meadow singed soon
enough. It is the perfect
dismembering of my
body that I do so well,
each part singing itself
into relief against grass
that is high and blonde
as a girl. I hide inside
her, spelling myself
this way, spelling myself
that. On the cool ground
beneath a tree, my mouth
lies torn and bruised
among the fruit. My face
is beautiful without it,
closed and white as a moon.
Summer is cinder the way
I live her. My art is colder.
I remember how it tasted
like metal. I go towards
my arms where they are
wrapped around each other
in the sun, and I rub them
together until each falls
to fire, and then I call the wind.
Quinn Latimer's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Paris Review, Phoebe, Prairie Schooner, Seneca Review, and elsewhere.
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