Audrey Gidman

SELF-PORTRAIT OF MY BODY (WHICH IS A PLACE) AS A PLACE (WHICH IS MY BODY)

The longer I am, the more a river I become. 
Which is to say: pull me under. Which is to say: I never left. 
The sun becomes a part of me. 
I know because I can see my own hands. 
I glisten when I move. I never stop moving. I move so fast & so far
away from what doesn’t fit. I carve myself new hips.
Make the ends of me into something else. Morning 
bright as a brand new edge. 
Glitter-swift. All sparkle. Goodbye, beginning. 
Goodbye, night. Goodbye, dark
place where grief is building me a house. 
Goodbye, moon & knife & sand. 
I am leaving now. It is day. I never did 
what I came here to do because everything 
changed. My hair grew long. I shaved it 
off. & it grew back again.

Audrey Gidman is a queer poet living in Maine. Her poems can be found or are forthcoming in The Night Heron Barks, Birdcoat Quarterly, Luna Luna, Rust + Moth, The Shore and elsewhere. She serves as assistant poetry editor for Gigantic Sequins and an editor for Newfound's Emerging Poets Chapbook Series. Her chapbook, body psalms, winner of the Elyse Wolf Prize, is forthcoming from Slate Roof Press.