Before I knew you,
I knew your essence—
mossed divot of your chest.
Knew the pink-musked
baby mouse of your ear.
When you’re gone,
I’ll milk every seam and stitch
to find you, fret moth-holes
of your sweater
with thumb and finger.
I’ll burrow into our bed,
beat sheets with fists,
stomp circles—an animal
refusing—until your scent
carries me back
to the forest of sleep.
K. D. Harryman is the author of Girls’ Book of Knots (BlazeVox,2023). Her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, Narrative, Cream City Review, The Greensboro Review, and Raleigh Review among others. She is the recipient of the 2019 Rumi Prize sponsored by Arts & Letters and the 2018 James Hearst Poetry Prize sponsored by North American Review. Her first book, Auto Mechanic's Daughter, was selected by Chris Abani for the Black Goat Poetry Series Imprint at Akashic Books in Brooklyn. She lives with her family in Los Angeles where she studies social work at USC.