Catherine Munsee

is the way they expose the soft belly of dirt,            the clinging            ropes of root. Tree crowns splayed against the new side of the hill, face downslope … grit in the teeth. Water-smooth trails transect ribs broken by the momentum of rock and sludged silt, […]

The rain is the envelope that holds our bodies… limbs enervated by language. Heavy muffled love settling like wet air. — Catherine Munsee

I Ghosts live like this. And sometimes, children. A house full of waiting. Small hands smooth bones into the flat, pale finish of the wall. II Letters             slide in             colonizing             the furrowed body Well-fed vowels             crowd the bowl-shaped             heart             of my hips III These are the hard utterances, each […]

the grey matter of the sea makes everyone else invisible. The trees                 all fall silent. Dirt, the color of new skin, the color of char, the mustard smell of clay,                 ends itself drowning in the sound of all that […]

The Barn is settling.                 Body splayed, exposure and rot cushion its slide                 into mulch. A gaping hole along the western face of the roof, bleeds ragged like an exit wound. Whole pieces of sky make their way inside                 whistling                 and burning… On grey days, I hear a lowing,                 the groan […]

“back when I was a fish…” and I imagine her sleek and slippery in her waterproof skin feathered fins trailing shadows like quills across rice her profile slashed by the scarlet fan of her gills.

  my door opened into a star-filled sky. A dark, cold universe shattered by light.

imagines gravity sideways. Lifting its hem, the toes of its shoes tap along the outstretched palms of the trees.