I want you to know her skin
was a thin threaded net
behind it a hedge all bramble

and shrub jasmine cording
below a belching smog
each twine creep threading

the surface of her arms and thighs
her skin was a paper
pulp of feathered

felt a screen that caught
the petal plum
web and weft taute over

each bud bruise upon her sheen
a glaze up underside of wrist
a flood pushing against

each pushing bloom
all that purple
litter blushed to the top of her

hands where it’d float
thumbed ruby birth stuck
inside a broad and cold well

deepened with her water
I want to tell you
her skin was a sheet snug

around something wild
a shelter and hard
lit stage usher

for the path left behind
by thorns trailed
from the vine still rooting in our blood

—

Cathlin Noonan (she/her) is completing her MFA at Texas State University. She is Assistant Poetry Editor for The Night Heron Barks and Associate Editor for Ran Off With the Star Bassoon. Cathlin’s poem “Ghazal With Louse” was a finalist for Crazyhorse’s Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize for 2022, and her poem “Setting the Record” was a finalist for Broad River Review’s 2022 Rash Award in Poetry. In 2021, she was runner-up for Sweet Lit’s Poetry Contest. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Banyan Review, The Broadkill Review, Broad River Review, Crazyhorse, Ruminate, Sweet Lit, and Small Orange Journal. She lives in San Antonio and can be found on Instagram @good_afternoonan and on Twitter @Noonan_Good.

Photography by: David J. Boozer