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"Rain" by Jennifer Givhan

Noise above us, its clinking
    of spoons. The months

like popcorn on the stove;
    but there was this:

steak on a plain ceramic plate
    and you with only a butter knife.

It resembled a heart;
    still, you ate. I remember

watching the drippings down your chin,
    like watching myself

butterflied to your pink
    lips, afterward, kernels

pitting your teeth
    and such relief, that sudden rain.

Didn’t we drown
    a crockpot in a kitchen sink?

It’s summertime; monsoons:
    but you’re not hungry.


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Jennifer Givhan was a Pen Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellow, a St. Lawrence Book Award finalist, a Vernice Quebodeaux Pathways Prize finalist for her poetry collection, and a fellowship recipient in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in over fifty journals and anthologies, including Best New Poets 2013, Prairie Schooner, DASH Journal (where her poem won the 2013 poetry prize), Indiana Review (where her poem was a finalist for the 2013 poetry prize), Contrary, Rattle, and The Los Angeles Review. She teaches composition at Western New Mexico University. ​
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