River Country

And suddenly, I was no one’s mother.
Just like that: shrill snap of fingers in air.
My body is as it’s always been: spare
and quiet. Small. No room for another.
We look at the water. Sit in silence.
We have never loved each other before
this moment, and we never will adore
the child we made of our violence.

You won’t ever love me like this again—dearest
for that we lost too soon. The river moves
and in me, an island unmoored, a bell
still ringing in an empty house. Nearest
to me, painted chairs. The legs make grooves.
We pass a white church and I kneel in hell.

Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer (they/she) is the author of the poetry collection Bad Animal (Riot in Your Throat, 2023) and the chapbook Small Geometries (Ethel, 2023.) The recipient of a Pushcart Prize, their work has been published in The Missouri Review, The Adroit Journal, and others. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets and has received support from The Seventh Wave and Tin House. She is a graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA program in poetry and is pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at New York University.