"Matryoshka" by Jonathan Fletcher

Matryoshka

If future yous were stacked
inside one another like a Russian doll —
each slightly shorter and thinner —
I wonder how small you’d get.
Or if the rouge in your cheeks
would fade. Or your floral scarf and dress grow
faint. Like you once cradled me,
I’d gently hold you against my chest,
even when you’re little
more than a palm’s worth of yellowed linden.
But you’re so much more than linden.
Who cares if the doctor says you’ve lost
two inches in height?
You make him look small.
You make me look small.
Even so, you’ve lost bone and muscle.
I open up the last of you.
And gasp and shrink in wonder.

jonathan fletcher

Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body, published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Headshot: Julian Ledezma

Photo Credit: Staff