Dialogues with Rising Tides. Kelli Russell Agodon

every forest, I carry a bonfire

      beneath my shirt. And my mattress?

      It’s a featherbed of flames.

      I’d want to write you a letter about longing,

      but it has so many wishbone moments

      you’d break, I promise. You—

      you’d end up crying or cowarding,

      or being part of the crocodile-tear

      audience asking for a refund. Like most

      lovers, my heartstone is actually heartbutter,

      a heart murmur made of wax and it melts,

      it smolders, the way the moth

      isn’t suspicious of a lighter

      until it moves too close to the fire.

      This is my danger—

      I kiss the whalebone without wondering

      what happened to the whale.

      It’s inexperience watching

      the mercury drip onto my tongue—

      seeing only the beauty of silver,

      not the poison of a perfect teardrop,

      like him. Or her. And still.

      Let’s not be the part of the drink

      that melts into something weaker.

      Like any darling, I trust too much.

      Even a burning building has a purpose,

      as the whiskey does, the nipple, the novel.

      So let’s begin the story here. Near the plastic

      ocean. Our shirts off. Our drinks filled.

      A bowl of cherries. Believing there aren’t any.

      Wildfires in sight.

      EVERYONE IS ACTING AS IF WE’RE NOT TEMPORARY, AND I AM FALLING APART IN THE PRIVACY OF MY OWN HOME

      When he says, Sometimes we learn the most from losing,

      I think how often I’ve been bamboozled

      by life, how I’ve dropped a quarter in a slot machine

      and instead of cherries got coffins. Got death?

      Yeah, I’ve seen the grim reaper wander

      my neighborhood in a Chanel suit with a diamond-

      studded scythe because we all want to be overdressed

      for the afterlife, we all want to believe

      there is a special place for us. But when I watched

      the body of my nana fade into thinness I thought,

      Please let me leave early—by plane crash, car accident,

      lightning bolt—don’t let me hold on so long

      I am a body longing for someone to text it

      —Hey babe, I’m kind of into you. To say, I miss you

      even though I don’t visit. Death and we butt-dial

      the wrong person. Death on a good drunk

      of port.

      I remember my dad once saying,

      You are worth more than you think, as I always sold myself

      at a discount, and I wish I didn’t, I wish I didn’t

      say how much I hurt on social media

      but sometimes I just want to believe I’m not alone

      like how we’re all doing cartwheels on life’s grass

      until someone lands in a sinkhole, until one of us

      decides it’s late and the streetlights

      are telling us it’s time to return back home.