Clementine

Winter 2025 Issue 3

SHELBY EDWARDS

It has been a year already
since I thought of pulling flesh
from skin
thought of the priest named Clement
a saint, maybe, of mercy
who gave his name
to the small fruit sitting in the palm
of my hand like the sun possessed

I think again of their hands
the art of those long fingers
and sharp knife
separating the apple from
its red slip
the heat of the spiral coming undone
the smallest of sounds against flesh

Pray and whisper…mercy

SHELBY EDWARDS is an emerging poet and non-fiction writer who lives on the edge of a very green island in northern Washington with two good dogs. She is a Hedgebrook alum, holds an MFA from the Oregon State University, spent over twenty years in the Army, and has most recently been published in the Sky Island Journal and the poetry anthology, So Long: The Anthology of Poet Warriors from Dead Reckoning Press.

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