Bodega | Half Step

Half Step

(for Hortensia, March 1824-April 1905)

A friend digs bones of what she’s loved and packs them with her each move. Between the draperies and wedding dishes. I spread ash over snow for traction. Such terrible beauty. My husband can’t name the feeling that clamps joy. But I am easy with the language of grief, the insistence of ghosts to reside in street lights and backdoor steam from the take-out place on 5^th. A dog’s throated bark. A necklace slipped unnoticed, lost. Maybe this is why I write to you, keeper of what I’ve prescribed to hold meaning. Namely, desire. It’s all accidental. A pronouncement of nerves and muscles between collarbone and rib. Between A sharp and B.

Megan Merchant (she/her) is the owner of the editing, manuscript consultation, and mentoring business Shiversong (www.shiversong.com) and holds an M.F.A. degree in International Creative Writing from UNLV. She is the author of three full-length poetry collections with Glass Lyre Press: Gravel Ghosts (2016), The Dark’s Humming (2015 Lyrebird Award), Grief Flowers (2018), four chapbooks, and a children’s book, These Words I Shaped for You (Penguin Random House). Her latest book, Before the Fevered Snow, was released in April 2020 with Stillhouse Press (NYT New & Noteworthy). 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 the editor of Pirene’s Fountain. You can find her poetry and artwork at meganmerchant.wix.com/poet.

130 – October 2023

By Megan Merchant

Half Step