By Julia C. Alter
When I say I love you,
you say covered in wings,
or covered in wind
A band name or a catalogue
of alibis The Most Private Thing
is an alien a tent
of hair a mushroom
And a mushroom
is a big white shaggy heart
multiplying in the dark
without blood without seed
A mirror of owls
a scale of fish our sacred geometry
and the sounds
we make on snow
Julia C. Alter received her MFA in Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems can be found in, or are forthcoming from The Southern Humanities Review, The Raleigh Review, Crab Creek Review, Sixth Finch, Foundry, Palette Poetry, Stained: An Anthology of Writing About Menstruation, and elsewhere. She lives in Vermont with her son. www.alterpoetry.com.