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The Athiest’s Pet
The rabbit died because I finally asked Them to kill it.
Euthanasia for the body only
Please, let’s see
Where the soul ends up — I’d never even wondered
Before at seventeen or thirty Because I had never
Held something so dead
Against my long living Barrel of a body.
For one half breath
I wished it was me, Then took it back fast From whatever I was
Suddenly believing in — What if it accepts
Only requests for death?
Van Berkum’s work has appeared in publications including Plough- shares, Five Points, and Strange Horizons, for which she received a Rhysling Award nomination. She was a 2016 Robert Pinsky Poetry Teaching Fellow at Boston University, where she received the Hurley Prize in Poetry. The Editorial Project Coordinator for MIT Sloan Man- agement Review, van Berkum is also the co-editor of spoKe, a poetry annual. She lives in Cambridge, MA. Her first book of poetry will be published by MadHat Press in 2021.
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