Audio Feature: Megan Merchant (Shō No. 3)
This poem is part of a larger epistolary exchange, "A Slow Indwelling", with Luke Johnson, and will be published this fall with Harbor Editions.
submissions are open
Established in 2002, revived in 2023
This poem is part of a larger epistolary exchange, "A Slow Indwelling", with Luke Johnson, and will be published this fall with Harbor Editions.
I’m more broken than I’ve ever been. / This shell of a body, emptied / and longing.
These trees war scalded from the mountains, burnt stubble, replanted when my father was a child, now tall again.
The last night with my mother, I blinded like a snake in the blue, /
shed the skin of daughter and switched roles
i am here with you by the premade sushi. / by the out-of-season strawberries. / by the tofu.
we stumble through a forest / of awkward silences, careful not to touch // the brambles.
I can think of a few things more entrenched, / like language, syllables strung together // in a lilt
INTERVIEW A Conversation with Nathan Xavier Osorio Shō intern Claire Zhou interviews Shō contributor Nathan Xavier Osorio, whose poems “How to Cook a Wolf,” “Empty Stadiums,” and “Come, Little Hunger” appear in Shō No. 4. Nathan’s debut collection of poetry, Querida, won the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, selected by Shara McCallum. Claire Zhou …
After all, what way is there to leave / a dance floor other than wet // & shaking under a mass of pleading / legs all huddled into a single moving // sacrifice—swaying tall & drowning / in bass?
The days have been heavy lately, /
an albatross on each shoulder
My mother fell in love with the way you cracked / into an urchin.
I smelled like churned earth, breasts bouldered and leaked / through my support bra into my shirt / for days after his deathbirth.
Mom, since we stopped / speaking, I've been searching / for the first word / you gave me.
My father came to this country / through the womb. My mother, too. // Their mothers and their fathers, too. / But somewhere behind them: a crossing.
Today, my heart is working / remotely. I watch it thump / and thrum reliably behind / the blur of a computer screen.
i’m drinking coffee and reading an essay / by Tarantino breaking down Scorsese’s decision to / cast Harvey Keitel as the pimp in Taxi Driver
The sirens—remembering—often sing to me / of my own deathwish.
how else would i describe it? / somewhere below all of us // i paced the dirt floor of a deep / and airless pit, digging and uncovering // only daylilies tight and green
I’m not good at holding / anything real // the glass the weight these night- / blooming jasmine
I share an arm rest / with a stranger who has desires // too.
There is still good meat / on these bones.
I can tell you about strength. / How the sun warms our skins. / How the moon turns tides.
I think I'm tired of auditioning. / I'm not dancing for bread anymore. / I'm not paying your fee.