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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.


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.