This selection is included in NonBinary Review #22, available here.

My grapes glisten obediently upon trained vines,
But you cannot be trained.
The water channels I’ve shaped duly irrigate my cave,
But your troth cannot be drained.
Ambrosia and nectar have been bested by meat and wine,
For you, Odysseus, my would-be slave,
Resist the divine.

Who’s truly captive when they captivate the captor?
Go on, chop down my tree.
Here. Augurs for your raft. Bore holes in the wood,
Like you have done to me.
Who flees an immortal’s embrace and thus has trapped her?
You, Odysseus, moving on for good,
Ending my chapter.

Katherine Quevedo was born and raised just outside of Portland, Oregon, where she works as an analysis manager and lives with her husband and two sons. Her poetry has appeared in the Santa Clara Review and Civilized Beasts, and her fiction has appeared in Factor Four, Apparition Lit, and elsewhere.