Megan Merchant
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Megan Merchant (she/her) is the co-owner of www.shiversong.com and is the author of four full-length collections. The latest, “Before the Fevered Snow”, was released at the start of the pandemic with Stillhouse Press. Her most recent awards include a drawing of a mermaid from her son for being the World’s Best Mom and the Inaugural Michelle Boisseau Prize with Bear Review. She the Editor of Pirene’s Fountain. You can find her work at meganmerchant.wix.com/poet.
Things that mean love, but might otherwise go unmentioned.
The sounds my neighbor makes in his woodshed, with a fresh blade.
Blue jays, out of season, flushing from a tree. A campout of ravens
by the trashcan, their oil-slick feathers, the very definition of beauty.
The old-timey cap on the hipster who works at the drive-up liquor,
the records he recommends that are impossible to find. Candles that
smell like olives and atomic sunbursts. The tiniest spider that tried
to hide on a painting, the one I saved with a pink cup, but then made
that cup its home. The incomplete sigh when you reach between my
legs, as if you are hoarding a fraction of that pleasure. The smoke that
corsets the mountains after a prescribed burn. The inexactness of light
through a pile of broken windows. The rotted piano with stuck keys.
Your body’s signature that rises to the skin, stains my hands blue.
The November firepit crumpled with crosswords & comics. Honeyed
whiskey on cold lips. The way you say wolf, without the l, so that
your dog thinks you are barking. My dream that zombies are biting
into my shoulder & my refusal to kill you when you turn.
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