Sweet Briar Lake, VA
A green that glosses
back the trees. A slap
of sun across my back.
I had been bobbing, real
easy, until a fish bit
my right nipple, surprisingly
hard. I’m up on the water
mat now, chest up—
a siren on a rock, luring—
what? It’d be funny, the fish—
audacity, if that spot
wasn’t still tender + pink
+, OK, perky. If my mind
hadn’t, automatically,
thought of your mouth
after. Of your mouth
all over.
Kieron Walquist is the author of OUR HANDS HOLD VIOLENCE, a 2024 National Poetry Series winner and 2026 finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award. A 2026 Unbound Emerging Poet honoree, his work appears in Northwest Review, Poet Lore, The Rumpus, and elsewhere, and has received support from Fine Arts Work Center, Monson Arts, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VCCA, and Vermont Studio Center. A PhD student at the University of Utah, he lives in Salt Lake City.
