The Great Divide

Meryem Yildiz

THE GREAT DIVIDE

by Meryem Yildiz

i move through the cloud forest, pull up my shirt.
bear with me as i bare my breasts for trees
veiled in soft moss and lichen, for shy bellbirds.
i stand on two continents, hidden from view,
chest agape, seafoam steam rising. i didn’t always
show this much skin. skin the colour of piss,
my brother used to say. between east and west,
i won the husk of difference. hide my skin,
heed barked orders, that’s what i learned to do.
but here in the mountain range, a brave sunray
peeks through the hazy cover, passes jade leaves
and settles in the undergrowth. i am hot, you see,
covered in coins, humid with expectation and desire
to photosynthesize. i turn to you, my canopy trees
shrouded in mist, my furtive wattled birds. i say
who knew piss was just another word for gold.

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MERYEM YILDIZ is a Turkish-Canadian poet from Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), and the author of Backbone (Guernica Editions, 2025). Her poems have appeared in journals across Canada, including Arc Poetry Magazine, The Ex-Puritan, PRISM International, CV2, and The Fiddlehead, among others. Winner of The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry and the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s carte blanche Prize, her work explores identity, culture, and the psyche.

The Great Divide was edited by Kelley Tai. It can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 8.3.