R.J. Harris is a student at West Virginia University and has been writing since the age of thirteen.
Her poems deal with the surrealism of emotion, an innate connection with nature, and unexpressed sexuality. She has been published in numerous literary journals and is finishing editing the manuscript for her first book, Pilgrim.
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27
in the morning i will
wake naked on the porch,
my legs covered in soft
animal fur spread apart
and thick with the length
of my hips; the dew
near the apple tree is
pregnant and singing with
reflection against the new sun.
the days eclipse onto themselves
with a folded minute where the
letters of my words seed into
the soil, a telling of time
by the fault lines and rings
of my calves.
this is where you will find me:
asleep next to the wild goose
her fat feathered arms shaking
and raining soft petals on my
stomach, my hair sewn into
each blade of grass, green against
the night, green against the
hooves of deer that beg my
feet to callus as we run together
covered in insect and branch.
the fawn and feral feline of
my soul will sing with your
coming, the entrance into
my body.
12
when my eyes opened between
stretches of concrete my
stomach swelled and dried,
turning to your face of
alabaster and sweat
your legs brown like a
deer, your hair a mess
of leaves and willow bark
that struck out violently
against the heat
against the highway.
now the sea is a mile of
memory, cool against my
pregnant body that twists
with alien creation,
moving and mantling near
my ribs that stretch out
like the fattened yellow
stars that beat down with
the warmth of the salty
nighttime where you first
came to me;
when i slept in the dawn
dewed grass i heard the
blades and leaves break
like sticks beneath your
hooves and i didn't move-
my body was a rhythm to
your chord a dance that
lifted me like a ghost
and filled my body
with yours.
and now the sun lifts
its lace like a curtain
near the west and i feel
each drop slide down
my neck;
the half-globe god
gives its surrender
to the evening howls
of coyotes that smell
the fawn in my womb.