I stuffed your hair
in my jacket pocket.
Stroked its feathers and told stories
about a dark snorting horse
the birds watch and the flies heckle.
I still get the knots inside
when I stroke. The knots telling
me about the parts of the body
and how they can hurt.
How easy it is to hurt and lose–
be alone and forget
how to not be alone.
I’m all wrong.
Wrong in the head
but so right in the heart.
All I can do is walk to the river,
walk into wetness.
Until my hands depend on the cold
fish to run through them.
Until my body turns
into a stone flung deeper.
Until my lungs, arms, and legs
can no longer be quiet
and start to play all at once.
SARAH LEVINE received her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from 2013 Best New Poets, PANK, Vinyl, Handsome among others. Levine has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, won Westchester Review's 2012 Writers' Under 30 Poetry Contest, and has a chapbook Her Man forthcoming with The New Megaphone Press.
