wound
1November 2, 2026 by The Citron Review
by Jill Kitchen
what if i could become plum, thin tear of purple skin? how many words are there for purple? violet, mulberry, amaranthine, amethyst. hold those in your mouth. if someone cracked me open, how much bruise color would spill out? entire storm skies within, brisk heat of lightning. before it strikes, the silk hairs on your arm rise, spark & crackle. what if we wore our wounds on the outside? you would see the blood-seam & spattered paint of my story, the before & after of a heart stopping. i would trace your brisk unfolding, the way you fire at dawn.
Jill Kitchen (she/her) is a poet living in Washington, D.C, though her heart can still be found in Colorado, New York, and London. Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets and Best Small Fictions and appears or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Birdcoat Quarterly, Crab Creek Review, Four Way Review, North American Review, Poet Lore, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. She is at work on her first collection.
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