To My Husband As Velveteen Rabbit
And you cause all the horses in me
to hurtle their shoulders against stable walls
purpling hay with their thick dripping hunger
bruising black boards with their crescent moon hooves
And you cause all the kites in me
to sing as they singe in the bright teeth of lightning
fluttering paper dissolving to ashes
twisting and shaping the sky they unfold
The drum in your throat is a dragon beneath
a membrane of cotton, surging for air
The scent of burnt driftwood that clings to your temples
transforms worn velvet and stuffing to bone
making, unmaking, remaking
Catherine Kyle is a Ph.D. student in English at Western Michigan University. Her poetry, fiction, artwork, and graphic narratives have appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, WomenArts Quarterly, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. Her hybrid-genre chapbook, Feral Domesticity, is forthcoming from Robocup Press this summer. You can learn more about her at 
