Jane loved her and often thought of her skin.
Its misleading surface area always moved her, how it wrapped around
and became infinite.
While Jane never existed,
her sudden sexual hungers and more frequent tenderness
most likely did.
Oh, Jane. You aren’t a child anymore.
Here’s a pinewood doorway for you to stand in.
You started off as a tree,
one of the squat,
twisted, reaching
varieties that only
grows in the center
of a field after
sundown.
The sky is pink and internal behind you,
and you are an outline of a thing, Jane,
a thing that happened here.
That’s why you can’t walk away.
Catie Rosemurgy is the author of two books of poems, My Favorite Apocalypse and The Stranger Manual. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the NEA, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at the College of New Jersey.
