
DEWCLAW CHILD RECALLS THE NAMING OF THINGS
CASSANDRA J. BRUNER
If there must be a beginning—
a woman pulled me a lode of limestone
from the creekbed.
By her breath
I was made pelt & red
red tendon.
At her touch
the coarse fur smoothed into
into an opalescent glow.
My first words: could my cock
be clit instead—
The gusset of my neck
milk column.
The cleft
of her cheek hawk rookery.
Our fingertips pilot lights in foreclosed homes.
Brushing their reflections
willow strands erupted
into clouds of ultraviolet locusts.
All creatures taking the chisel & kiln to themselves.
CASSANDRA J. BRUNER, the 2019-2020 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow, earned her MFA from Eastern Washington University. A transfeminine poet and essayist, their writing has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Muzzle, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Third Coast, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2019 Frost Place competition, her chapbook, The Wishbone Dress, is forthcoming from Bull City Press. Currently, she lives in Madison, teaching at University of Wisconsin.