Poem-Cognitariat

—quick-listed
to the longhand of playbor

          or

in border parts I
lost a country     quick of
the nail and bitten through

I confess no green
flower   am wood flower

          as in

wish I hadn't      a slow leak
can happen in a bicycle
tube     inside a girl
inside a tube inside a girl

          I confess:

I know now it
is possible to be full & empty
all at once      I confess I
no longer want to confess I
confess a flattening

          or that

property
is a measure of elimination*

I limn red I
confess I rosary
I baby I limn—

then well she said
well well

—I confess no flower I
confess I no longer
want to I    the brutal ex
hibit the habit I, I

This stanza borrows its content from C.S. Giscombe's Prairie Style* (Dalkey Archive, 2008).

Knar Gavin is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree in literature at Syracuse University. Knar's recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Burnside Review, Bayou and Heavy Feather Review. You can visit her at tropopausing.com.