River

A river twists 

through the brush

December settles 

on the surface

oak leaves disintegrate

with mosquito legs

that broke away 

from their bodies

who knows

what else will pass through

this water

like blood

like babies

like yearnings to show or conceal

our skin 

pass through us

a river, a woman, 

has a shape

what grows inside

takes that shape

for a moment

then takes its own 

down by the river

one 

girl

reaches her hand 

inside 

her wrists follow 

her neck

she is blending 

into the green-brown, 

her crow-black hair

fading

beneath the tender ripples

when at last she emerges

only seconds have passed

but there is river 

seeping into her skin

into her bones, river

in her nose 

her mouth

what pain, what dreams

did she pull up 

from the depths

where clouds of mud 

and silt and rock and rain 

are suspended in water

like a new body, 

translucent, unformed 

silently writhing in place

a river

runs inside her

was it there

all along 

Emily Gray is a junior at Wheaton College, MA and a visual art fellow. She is majoring in Art History and English, entrenched in the analytical and contextual facets of her main creative outlets, visual art and creative writing. The work of female artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements like Frida Khalo, Hannah Höch, Claude Cahun and Méret Oppenheim are major inspirations for her, speaking to her fascination with gender, sexuality, and the challenge of power structures. She is interested in depictions of sexuality that deviate from the heteronormative tradition with the knowledge that the male/female relationship is the classical paradigm and the female body is historically contested as the grounds for male self discovery and fetishization.

Meira Kerr-Jarrett is a writer living in Jerusalem, Israel with her husband and kids. Her work has appeared in Apricity, Lumina, Communication Arts, Its Nice That, and elsewhere. In addition to poetry, she writes for top brands worldwide.