OFFERING
Pink splashes on linoleum—
mix of overripe peach juice and blood
drawn by my single sharp knife.
The gods must be hungry to force-
shift a blade, demand a taste
of the last fresh fruit until payday.
THAW
I am a tiny trickle. My fingers
sneak into bedrock’s cracks,
tickle pebbles until they laugh,
rolling back and forth. I feed
rivers. Bathe thirsty throats.
I lick foundations into jigsaw
jumbles. I grow arms,
push cleft basalt cliffs apart.
JANNA KNITTEL (use name) is the author of Real Work (Nodin, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Award in poetry, and the chapbook Fish & Wild Life (Finishing Line, 2018). Janna has also published poems in Blueline, Constellations, North Dakota Quarterly, Pleiades, The Trumpeter, and The Wild Word.
Want to read more great poetry and prose from Issue 71? Great River Review now offers individual issues for sale. You can purchase a copy of GRR 71, or a number of other back issues, here.