by Megan Merchant

by Megan Merchant

“Form itself, even if completely abstract ... has its own inner sound.” ― Wassily Kandinsky

My teacher says, use whatever you have around.

Scream in a shard of glass.

Shriveled house plant, bent spoon, dried ink splotch under the coffee table.

Shadow side of morning. Cold.

Stack of spines never cracked, voicemail unanswered.

Lampshade. Salt lick. Creaky floorboard. I’m here but the world is closing in tight.

Feather I’ll find in a pocket years from now. Dip of paint.

Lipstick—burnt red. Pale dress. Paired with a saucer of warm milk.

A worry stone. A silk scarf. A scar.

It’s all out of tune. Even the refrigerator’s hum is wet.

Honeycomb. Hairbrush. Tangle of scotch tape.

There’s a song I knew. It lingered near the small of my back. It ached.

Rabbit’s foot. Windchime. Button unstitched.

It was full of possibility. Like grass before the snow.

Like lilac. Like shame.

Also like gunshots down the road that have no mouth,

but are negotiating an avalanche of dark.

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Megan Merchant lives in the tall pines of Prescott, AZ with her husband and two children. She holds an M.F.A. degree in International Creative Writing from UNLV and is the author of three full-length poetry collections with Glass Lyre Press: Gravel Ghosts (2016), The Dark’s Humming (2015 Lyrebird Award Winner, 2017), and Grief Flowers (2018), as well as four chapbooks and a children’s book, These Words I Shaped for You (Philomel Books). Her latest book, Before the Fevered Snow, was released in April 2020 with Stillhouse Press. She was awarded the 2016-2017 COG Literary Award, judged by Juan Felipe Herrera, the 2018 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, second place in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and most recently the Inaugural Michelle Boisseau Prize. She is an Editor at Pirene’s Fountain and The Comstock Review. See more at meganmerchant.wix.com/poet.