POETRY / Catwoman in Nine Haiku / Shannon Austin

1. Another’s mouth splits.
   A synonym for woman
   is a cat’s first life.

2. An ending begins
   when the woman you replace
   shares your reflection.

3. Mistletoe kisses.
   Beauty in duality,
   another promise.

4. Life spills into life.
   Then in what other timeline
   do you live your ninth?

5. In some universe,
   patience is not only name
   but necessity.

6. Anticipation:
   when whatever you become
   another will be.

7. What you do not say:
   another version of me
   might not know better.

8. What begins can end.
   Bodies that never settle
   can’t tell the difference.

9. A moon’s erasure.
   Become the one shadow that
   won’t depend on light.

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Shannon Austin is a writer from Baltimore, MD, with an MFA in poetry at UNLV. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Colorado Review, American Chordata, After the Pause, The Shore, and elsewhere.