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Two poems by Catherine Fletcher

Updated: Mar 31, 2023

π’s Daughter


π’s daughter never repeats herself. She plots the paths of rivers, curls in the tendrils of Virginia creeper,

the twists of the double helix. She calculates the life spans of robins and squirrels, the angles of plum trees. She exists in a haze of numbers: proofs for every being.


Her hands draw shapes as she speaks in the rhythms of poetry. She flirts with decimals and Arabic numerals; fractions are far too vulgar. She hides her kiss in every circle. She loves square roots more than she loves me. π’s daughter never repeats anything. How transcendental…




Spell for Crossing a Threshold



So, traveler, through the fog you have come to this place, holding the years in your hands. You have sought answers from storefront fortune tellers, searched pyramids. Now, counterclockwise, you move toward intimate danger, unable to speak of transformation.


This doorway.

This space of half-sleep, of unpredictable past.

You might dissolve into dead letters.

Cast lots instead of grieving.

Curtained into a second self, the shadows

will demand your complicity.


Midway between peace and punishment

a steady hand and watchful eye are needed,

doorman, bell ringer, ferryman, passenger.

Open what is shut and shut what is open.

Part the waters.

Outrun the sun’s waning light.


Cross the threshold, remembering:

an entrance is also an exit.




Catherine Fletcher is a writer based in Virginia, USA. Recent work has appeared in The Inflectionist Review, New World Writing, Kissing Dynamite, Hopkins Review, and the concert series Concept Lab. She has received fellowships from Arizona State University, Queens Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, and others. She currently is a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellow and a Creature Conserve Mentee. Learn more at http://cafletcher.blogspot.com.


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