In the kitchen after the world | Megan M. Garr

When the world woke from burning
we wiped down the counters
and straightened the dishtowels. 

Alarms held up the distance, just habit,
and the baby sighed and turned
across the receiver. The sun rose 

like it does and like we
like to say it does, and each one
was an apparition you tallied 

from the kitchen, rag still in hand,
standing there. You said, yes,
there. I asked, 

can we stand here still. You said, yes,
here, I dreamt you armfuls of the world.

Megan M. Garr is a poet and the founder of Versal, a nucleus of literary arts & experimentation in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is the author of two books of poetry, Terrane (MIEL, 2015) and The Preservationist Documents (Pilot Books, 2012). Her writings on the literary economy have been anthologized in Paper Dreams: Writers and Editors on the American Literary Magazine (Atticus Books, 2013) and Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century (Milkweed Editions, 2016). Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Megan now lives in Amsterdam, where she has worked to strengthen the Dutch and European literary communities for over a decade.