Katie Hartsock
On His Beauty
His hair smells like a meadow nobody owns
His seed-sized fingernails, so sharp
Already, leave scratch marks on my chest
Spelling out the name he had before
I delivered him into time
His eyes predict every color of the future except theirs
I have seen the shadow of a sparrow fly
Over his head asleep in the afternoon
So I have seen the world
I nurse him through the night and at dawn
I eat potato chips
Katie Hartsock is the author of Bed of Impatiens (Able Muse Press, 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Ohioana Award in poetry. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Ecotone, Exchanges, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southwest Review, and The Wallace Stevens Journal, among others. She holds a MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Comparative Literary Studies from Northwestern University. She is an assistant professor of English at Oakland University in Michigan.
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