Redshift by Katelyn Joy Singh
Associate poetry editor Kenley Alligood on today’s bonus poem: “Redshift” evokes increasing distance invisible as the wavelengths of light, the way things as big as time and space continually collapse and expand, and what all of this means when applied to a person we love. The poem asks us to consider how intimate spaces like a living room or a vehicle hurtling down the interstate can contain whole universes.
Redshift
We share cream space in the overstuffed chair
my round hips ebbing your own
nothing else between us but television noise.
In the way you hold your breath I know you
are already leaving: the mattress and box spring,
the hutch with its broken door, homemade
switchboards of blue and green guitar pedals packed
safely in the copper bed of your truck
and you driving—arm stretched out the open
window, devouring interstate, feeling
the way air changes as you groan south
from one hemisphere to another—
What else is left but you watching
the way my hand rests
between my thighs, and you closing your eyes
wishing to be that hand?
A Kentuckiana native, Katelyn Joy Singh holds an MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. She teaches creative writing at the College of Southern Nevada and is the poetry editor for Red Rock Review. Her work is published in Reed Magazine, 45th Parallel, and 580 Split, among others.
