Poetry By Katie Stimpson

 Mark Collins CC




I’ve Never Let Go                                                                                                                 

I’ve never let go of a single thing and it shows on my face 
and in my hands, which have lost their prehensile form 
and are now petrified claws, good for nothing.
I couldn’t pledge allegiance (if I wanted to) or clap my 
hands thunderously (if something would only move me so) 
or get a pie out of the oven or even roll the dough or 
thread a needle or slap you in the face or the ass or the 
soles of your feet. I couldn’t braid my sister’s hair or turn 
the pages of a book or underline something beautiful I 
found there.

I just couldn’t let go, I guess.

So now I sit in the garden and watch the sun glint and 
race on the stray spider web tracks and hold my breath 
when sparrows land on my curled, mangled fists –
they love knowing I can’t catch them, they feel safe 
resting on my withered grasp.

I hold a bird or two a day this way –  my wanting crumpled, 
debilitated, deceased, contained.





The truth is                                    

I used to pull petals off of flowers
in a field by my house. Behind the old
fire station and next to the cemetery
where my dad mowed the lawn (and
I skipped) between the graves. We survived
a lot there and the surviving has been
on my mind lately. It seems strong, it seems
random, it seems like I could have loosened
my jaw out of the smile a long time ago
and it would have made sense. But it’s hard
when you’re 5 to know God’s the flowering
and not a thing who could love you or not.

​


Katie Stimpson is an expressive artist currently living a hermitic life deep in the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains. She has a BFA in Performance with a minor in Writing from Naropa University and has been acting and writing her entire life in numerous companies, communities, institutions, and locations around the world. ​