In the Kingdom of My Familiar, Julie Platt
I have a heart that shoos me through the hours.
I have a father and a mother. I chew
heavy, seedless bread; I chop my dogwood tree.
I wait for winter, when the voices of my friends
are distinct in the articulate cold.
I am not a machine, though it is true
I have been augmented. In place of my legs,
the jaunty bones of a child
mistaken by his father for a stag. My windpipe
is the birth canal of a girl who went missing
in the Tennessee woods. Are you grateful for your life
in spite of what rots off of this world and dies
writhing in the snow?
Do not be afraid,
I am only a woman.
-- My Familiar, from In the Kingdom of My Familiar
About Julie Platt
Julie Platt received a doctorate in rhetoric and composition studies from Michigan State University, and has master's degrees in poetry writing from Bowling Green State University and Ohio University. Her creative work has most recently appeared in Barn Owl Review, Birdfeast, Moon City Review, and Weave. She researches the relation-ship between creative writing and digital technologies, and she is currently Assistant Professor of English, Director of the Writing Center, and Director of Composition at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
