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FLORIDA, BY ​KASEY JUEDS


​The first time I tried
the pocket knife you gave me, it slipped

and sliced my palm. We were
driving south, toward the place

where I was born. I thrust
the cloth I’d used to staunch the blood

to the bottom of my bag, folded
the blade so just the dull

edge showed. Smoothed an unhurt
finger over the handle: carved

from an old boat’s hull and inscribed
on both sides, the wood riven

with narrow channels where words
were chiseled in. On my palm, that bright seam

lingered for months. Afterwards
an old sadness took its place, skin

making invisible what has
touched it. I lived here

when _______. And when I try
to picture that boat, I can’t. Only

planks fitted together to keep
the ocean out, metallic light

on the leaves of strange trees
hemming the trail to the mangrove swamp.

I don’t know their names or if, after
we left, they bloomed. Only that while

we were gone, a snake shuddered out
of its translucent skin and
​
left it outside our door.



NEXT
Kasey Jueds is the author of two collections of poetry, both from the University of Pittsburgh Press: Keeper, which won the 2012 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and The Thicket, forthcoming in 2021. Her work can be found in journals including American Poetry Review, Crazyhorse, Narrative, Beloit Poetry Journal, Ninth Letter, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Pleiades. She lives in the mountains of New York State with one human, a spotted dog, and many houseplants.
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