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Poetry | February 2018

Litany at Birth

By Jennifer Manthey

Tiny thread of me, secret strand
of my selfish heart. Beautiful unspooling.
My new periphery. Shade trees now
in the field of my vision.
My carved-out ache, my hollowing
night-time mouth. My near-
drowning, my buoyant,
buoyant girl, my surfacing,
my breath, my sudden aerial
view. My half-moon evening,
my life-split.
Crooked hem, my sweetest
seamstress, my newly
stitched and rumpled future.
My crown is you. My delicacy,
you, my pink-fingered, dark-haired
morning. My centimetered lengthening,
my fainting and my cool,
waking air. My window thrown open.
My return, second childhood,
my new-angled memory: I remember suddenly
my own cold mother, the longing,
the touching edge
of her voluminous skirts, and I marvel:
Could it be me,
my tiny alarm,
whom you are reaching for?

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