synesthesia after anesthesia

by Kathryn Kirkpatrick

waking up like a needle
in a haystack
afraid to be found

and if found
to make nothing more
than a stitch in water

but even so
the unimaginable ripple
might touch the tongue

of a passing deer
who has bent to drink
so long and so deeply

I forget my fear
and become the current
in her liquid eye


KATHRYN KIRKPATRICK teaches poetry, Irish studies, and environmental literature at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. She is the author of three poetry collections, The Body’s Horizon (1996), Beyond Reason (2004), and Out of the Garden (2007).