I did not know
how to touch, to be
touched. My body a scrap
of parchment, reflection
in the well, mine.
Then you
came — dream of the field,
of the offering. I could tell
you it was quiet, just
a young woman slumbering
feathers breath
but the story unfolds
and unfolds. It was a songbird
at dawn bright pulse
in my window burrow
of blossoms O God
it seared me. I tell you now
it was like the stars, a cold
fire. I burned.
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.