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  • Heater Hum. Cold Floor Cold Paws. Gray Sky, and: Signal Call. Return of Shadow. Return to Nest
  • Megan Kaminski (bio)

HEATER HUM. COLD FLOOR COLD PAWS. GRAY SKY

Cloudfall and scaled skin. Ash all around. Sparks nose to nose thorn to thistle. Cold light emergent. Needles emergent from snow without melt without ice-over. Lung constriction, spore and spittle. Quilts piled onto beds and sofas drifted from the exterior walls. No romance in this lingering—no polar vortex or arctic thrall—just suspicion lasting chill. Dream songs beckon from south: sand and swords, mountain and sea, sweat on brow and stink of pit, welcome remainders. [End Page 155]

SIGNAL CALL. RETURN OF SHADOW. RETURN TO NEST

Two ropes from tree branch. Bird scuttle in bush out front, through windows. Peck and paw. Cold days far from over. Newspaper-wrapped fish and taxi fares to the country. Frozen river cracking, gray receding into distance into calls to other people. Low hemoglobin counts, lack of appetite, lack of patience. Footfall quieted. Hand to mouth, girl in slumber, nine sticks broken in the lawn. Evergreen drift into late morning. The sky cleared, the cough suppressed, the deep ache of thaw. [End Page 156]

Megan Kaminski

Megan Kaminski is the author of two books of poetry: Deep City (Noemi Press, 2015) and Desiring Map (Coconut Books, 2012). She is an assistant professor in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Kansas and the founder and curator of the Taproom Poetry Series.

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