To Make a Wound

/ Issue 13.2 /

I roll two sheets in….. like you taught me so
The platen won’t get worn out….. and again
I write to you….. I write you here….. I know
Now you’re more me than you….. I’m writing in

Winter and you’re the stiffness and the cold
Still in my fingers….. but in summer you
Would be….. the bladed fingers wounding cold
Air from the hot….. air at the window you

Would be….. the roaring of the blades
Hacking the summer from the air….. and my relief
Grandmother tell me is it best to breathe
But is it better to be comforted

We didn’t speak for years….. after I left
Writing you here I give the death I take
I know I should feel wounded by your death
I write to you to make a wound write back

Shane McCrae

Shane McCrae

Shane McCrae’s most recent books are Sometimes I Never Suffered, a finalist for the Maya Angelou Book Award, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the Rilke Prize, and Cain Named the Animal, both published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He has received a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
Shane McCrae

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Author: Shane McCrae

Shane McCrae’s most recent books are Sometimes I Never Suffered, a finalist for the Maya Angelou Book Award, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the Rilke Prize, and Cain Named the Animal, both published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He has received a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.