Keli Osborn

Keli Osborn lives and writes in Eugene, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in multiple journals and anthologies.

When she’s not playing with words, she might be hiking, reading with kindergarteners, or researching election practices.

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► Keli's microchap & poems are available below. Download the single-page PDF by clicking the title.

Origami Microchap with Selected Poems

Breathing Lessons

Click title to download micro

Cover: Clichy Glassworks
(Cristalleries de Clichy), France.
Paperweight, ca. 1845-60.
The Art Institute of Chicago

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Breathing Lessons

I’ve been to Ketchikan
but never Denali,
watched a butterfly herd
on Santiam Pass,
caught a star
with my left hand
one late summer night.
Whenever my feet
slip the slopes,
I come back to the start.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Sometimes, the world
is too damn beautiful.

The Next Morning

Bright yellow soaked the hotcakes,
dripped from forks,
coated my tongue like canary blood.
It could’ve been morning
in another area code.
I don’t remember.

March, Here

The grape hyacinth are in bed
with the strawberries, upright and bold,
refusing the sly ways of summer.

Mystery comes later
on hot afternoons, bare peaches.
In spring, tulips stand

like adolescent dogs
on hind legs, fierce sun glints
through blinds at dinnertime,

all the vernal accessories give off
an innocent whiff. The scent
could throw you,

if you didn’t know virginity
is self-possession and even
the grass is rutting.

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Poets