I am here
to remind you: we can
have both. Throat against
throat. There was a red thought
I thought would never
touch me. I dreamt
I broke into the basement
of my childhood home. There
were so many stairwells
but none led me out
until the bluest
of doors. I was scared
to see what was
behind it. I still remember
the dirt beneath his
fingernails. Forget
prayers: you have to
keep these organs
wet. All these dogs were always
a metaphor anyway. I was scared
to see what was
behind it. I met with a friend
afraid to leave
her marriage, not for her safety
but the labor of starting
over. Break the neck
of the praise you seek, put it
out of its misery. Once, I laid
down in tall grass. The rain
never touched me, the earth
cradled it all.
—Caitlin Scarano
Caitlin Scarano is a writer based in Bellingham, Washington. She holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her second full length collection of poems, The Necessity of Wildfire, was selected by Ada Limón as the winner of the Wren Poetry Prize and recently won a 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award. Her work has appeared in Granta, Carve, Prairie Schooner, and Colorado Review. You can find her at caitlinscarano.com.