Julia Kolchinsky, born in Ukraine, was the Second Place winner of Narrative’s Sixteenth Annual Poetry Contest. She the author of five poetry collections, including The Many Names for Mother and PARALLAX (University of Arkansas Press, 2025). Her awards include two William Carlos Williams Prizes, the Ezra Pound Prize for Literary Translation, and the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania and is an assistant professor of English and creative Writing at Denison University.

Family Portrait as a Collection of Bones

by Julia Kolchinsky

My dog collects bones, buries them
in couch cushions as though in
the earth, returning to find them

whole and uneaten by worms.
My husband collects bruises, counts
how many rise above the skin, how wide


the purpling icebergs spread. He collects
bass strings, forms them into hanging loops,
bronzing nooses. My father collects
People on couch
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