Catherine Broadwall 
​​​

Communion

Tried so hard to look stable
that I let myself grow rigid.

Almost forgot I’m a bag
of starlight, zipping up its coat.

Almost allowed myself to believe
the trajectory was all down from here.

Looked at the rest of my life
as if a consolation prize.

Now what to do with all this
eternity surging in my sternum?

Blue as a boxer’s knuckles,
churning, river otter style.

If I light the incense, paint
my nails, coax her out with

the music she likes,
may the saint of my better

​self come bless me, place
her wafer on my tongue.

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Catherine Broadwall is the author of Water Spell (Cornerstone Press, forthcoming 2025), Fulgurite (Cornerstone Press, 2023), Shelter in Place (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), and other collections. Her writing has appeared in Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. She was the winner of the 2023 Paula Svonkin Creative Arts Award and the 2020 COG Poetry Award, as well as a finalist for the poetry categories of the 2021 Mississippi Review Prize and 2021 Pinch Literary Awards. She is an assistant professor at DigiPen Institute of Technology, where she teaches creative writing and literature.