Megan Merchant | Drought | Poets Resist | Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Megan Merchant lives in the tall pines of Prescott, AZ. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections: Gravel Ghosts (Glass Lyre Press, 2016), The Dark’s Humming (2015 Lyrebird Award Winner, Glass Lyre Press, 2017), four chapbooks, and a children’s book, These Words I Shaped for You (Philomel Books). She was awarded the 2016-2017 COG Literary Award, judged by Juan Felipe Herrera. She is an Editor at The Comstock Review.

Megan Merchant's website.

Also by Megan Merchant: Gravel Ghosts In the Rooms of a Tiny House Unspeakable Light A Thousand Paper Cranes Translucent

Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry: Ossuary Making Soap

Poets Resist
Edited by Kolleen Carney Hoepfner
May 16, 2018

Megan Merchant

Drought

Through violence, you may ‘solve’ one problem, but you sow the seeds for another. — Dalai Lama I stand on the balcony, chunk of granite in my hands— the snake in the pond below is hunting the goldfish we brought home from the store and named. Pink Man. Old Pink Man. Shrive & George. My neighbor shrugs & says everything is starved. The ponderosa pine, close to the house & eighty stories tall, gives all of its color to the bark beetles sucking it dry. I say, the way of things, as compass, as white noise, as relief. The dead tree sways in the dry-storm, rasping our bedroom window. The needles, drained gold, flicker loose, as if swimming. It is a form of madness, lightning without rain. I place the rock in a pile with others, name the snake.