Mercy by Sophie Klahr


 

Walking onto the shore without a plan,
without my other mouth.
 

The guttural of Us:        full,
a warm black sound,
born, knit—
 

       How to leave?         Thus shocked
to blossom, thus accustomed, heat-sure
and solid?
 

The risk grows abstract;
 
What offering’s expanded?
            We’re past departures;
How to split again?
 
We eat and eat and eat
and still our hands are clean.

 
 
 

Sophie Klahr’s poems, essays and reviews appear in Ploughshares, The Rumpus, Gulf Coast, B O D Y, Sycamore Review, Linebreak, and other publications. She is the author of the chapbook ________ Versus Recovery (Pilot Books), and is a contributing editor at Gigantic Sequins. She lives in Los Angeles.