Two poems by Reece Rowan Gritzmacher

Decomposition

For 27 years and two months

I owned a y 

or it owned me.

Now,

no such question inhabits my nameplate.

Gone, too, l.

I claim a w and o instead.

Did I trade a lie for woe?

I would tell you 

I sneak into gardens on no-moon nights

to whisper sugar at letters decomposing

in black bins, such tender 

roots turned soil.

But, no–

I hadn’t realized their absence til just now,

13 months onward.

note: "metamorphosmosis" has been formatted with an image file to maintain line break consistency on mobile devices

Reece Rowan Gritzmacher lives in a mountain town surrounded by ponderosa pines, but grew up hugging mossy trees in the Pacific Northwest. Their poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming on Barrelhouse, About Place Journal, Chapter House Journal, and elsewhere. They work at a public library and serve on the board of the Northern Arizona Book Festival.