The Shallow Ends
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REVISING, GRIEF

10/17/2019

 
                    by James Merenda

In my hometown there is a beach full
of the children I have been, who died

clutching the farewell I wrote them,
a dearjohn for every one. They scour

the text for a hint, a subtextual thread
to prove that they, perhaps alone

survived our term together.
I am narrating when I notice

the letter in my hand. Unfamiliar
handwriting but drowsy lucidity

says it’s mine. I know but deny.
I am also an imagined

death in the catalog.
I took a name appropriate

to my exit route.
If it’s too direct

to say I killed my
imaginary friends,

then say I staged
house fires they didn’t escape,

that I played the peculiar child
waiting to be found in the backyard,

telling my parents when they ask
what I’m doing and how I got there

I’m waiting for it to be safe
, pointing
to the open bedroom window.





​
Picture
photo by Clark Hartman

James Merenda (they/them) is a queer & nonbinary poet and community organizer who resides in Boston, MA. They were a selected participant in Winter Tangerine’s March 2019 intensive, and their work has appeared in PANK, THRUSH Poetry Journal, and Passages North. James first poetry collection, Washed Clean of Summer’s Dust was named a finalist for YesYes Books’ 2019 Pamet River Prize. Follow them on Twitter: @james_merenda. 

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