Elegy for a Trauma
K Janeschek
In the wet earth, a footprint
smaller
than the one before. Do you enter
with your finger
or a fist
first? It doesn’t matter—the ground
doesn’t grip
like it used to. Dirt slides off
slick skin. If the sun
came out, you would harden,
burn your exposed hip.
You would leave
softness in a pile behind your scalp.
For a long time, you’ve lived
between this root
and the rain,
the sting of gentleness
stashed inside your throat.
Do you want to
be haunted or held?
Before you
answer: smear the mud
with your other foot,
lift a pebble from the path.
K Janeschek is a nonbinary and lesbian writer originally from the Midwest. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Mid-American Review, Foglifter, The Swamp Literary Magazine, Split Rock Review, Great Lakes Review, Hoxie Gorge Review, and elsewhere, and has won an AWP Intro Journals Project award in poetry as well as Hopwood awards in both poetry and nonfiction. They live in Alaska.


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