Caitlyn Klum’s “Gymnasium”
The LARB Quarterly no. 45, “Submission,” presents a new poem by Caitlyn Klum.
By Caitlyn KlumJuly 10, 2025
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This poem is a preview of the LARB Quarterly, no. 45: Submission. Become a member for more fiction, essays, criticism, poetry, and art from this issue—plus the next four issues of the Quarterly in print.
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Gymnasium
In the beginning, the sky contracts
A wavering reflection in a puddle
The problem is my brain dulls on Sundays
The real problem is everywhere I look
There is two of everything
Two Fanning sisters rising from the field
And a Jennifer everywhere I go
When I think of childhood, I remember
My mouth was like pulling back curtains
I scraped my soul from the counter
I scraped soil from a plastic container
I could have kept listing colors
I could have stayed like this
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Featured image: Vincent van Gogh. Mountains at Saint-Rémy, 1889. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978 (78.2514.24). CC0, guggenheim.org. Accessed July 3, 2025. Image has been cropped.
LARB Contributor
Caitlyn Klum has poems appearing or forthcoming in American Chordata, Ugly Duckling Presse’s Second Factory, and more. A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, she is currently a doctoral student in the Department of English & Literary Arts at the University of Denver.
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