CAITLIN SCARANO


What You Killed, What You Thought


I’m a quartered moon curling your feet. Useless
​prey. Yes, I guess a part of me

never wanted to be with you. Build the house,
​hew the house. Can’t glue together

the splinters of bedroom with come and
crushed cranberry. Your mind now – legless

animal. I look at photographs of
​us by those bodies

of water, your ripe mouth frown-stained,
​like I was fiddling with that grandfather

clock built into your chest. There was a time
​when I knew you though – face, hands, pendulum.

Now I’m undressing with my winter teeth. Chattering
snow and no. Please believe me: once, I glanced

out that kitchen window and saw our son
​picking up sticks in a fragile coat. I never held

a trench knife behind my back, never
​kept a poisonous lip up my flannel sleeve.

I was only mouthing mercy and an aggressive
​thirst for you. The blue of my eye, you

could not name it. But I did not make it up.


BIO ​

CAITLIN SCARANO is originally from southern Virginia but now lives in interior Alaska, where she is a poet in the University of Alaska Fairbanks MFA program. Her poetry is forthcoming in CALYX and Fugue.

 

​Photo by Lauren Henley