You didn’t own anything, yet —
not name, a breath, a spoon
to lift to your mouth. I drew your stars
into the garden dirt, drew your moon,
each of your sunsets. What did I know
of obsession, of a body within a body?
My bones ached. You were without iris,
spine, teeth. Not yet my robin
in the nest, my cedar box of ash. Divine
Master, I said. What did I know
of how much water I would bring forth,
how many ways to drown. I tell you
I opened my apron to release
the deadheaded blooms. I tell you this
as though you could hear me. Once,
you were prayer. What I did for love:
I loved.
Amanda Auchter is the author of The Wishing Tomb, winner of the 2013 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry and the 2012 Perugia Press Book Award, and The Glass Crib, winner of the 2010 Zone 3 Press First Book Award for Poetry. Her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming at HuffPo, CNN, Alaska Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, The Massachusetts Review, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day project, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College and is a regular book reviews contributor at Rhino and Indianapolis Review. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter: @ALAuchter.