If you ever decide to age— love: invite me. I’ll retire my
bones to make you tea, our skin bare and soft. We love with
claws and teeth, yours gnashing louder than your
monologue: thank god it's morning, and we're dead
in the morning— somewhere the moon rises
out of the rain: I stood there bathed
in the quiet. Come in from the cold, let me love
those bruises out of you until your skin sings
songs that your lips don’t even know
the words to— crows bowing in a vulture’s
shadow: mushrooms blossoming in
the soft parts of my skull I can taste the next
60 years of my life: it appears as a hand
kiss: gentle nudge: spray of memory: cardinals
with snow-brushed wings nestle themselves into pine
branches the way a heart nestles into the ribs— rivers
flow out their beds: gay manic flame snapping
in the fireplace— I am teaching my body
new muscle memories: what I thought was an end turned
out to be a middle— I will get up with the gold glow
of the sun, a blue sky, my laughter and a full tank of gas—
I saw the future, and in it— I read you poetry: alive.
Sources:
- Adrienne Lenker, “Fool”
- Ashe Vernon, “Robins Egg heart(break)”
- Caroline Kepnes, You
- Girlpool, “Cut your Bangs”
- Jan Wagner, “Portrait of the Rain” translated from German by David Keplinger
- Jasmine Mans, Black Girl Call Home
- Keaton St James, “Wisdom Teeth” and “The Strawberry Poem”
- Elliot Wake, Black Iris
- Lev St. Valentine, “This is How Much I Love You”
- Neil Hilborn, “The Future”
- Rudy Francisco, “Love Poem Medley”
- seravph (on tumblr), “I Think I Am Going to Cut My Hair”
- Terrance Hayes, “American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin”
- Timothy Steele “On the Eve of a Birthday”
- Tony Hoagland, “A Color of the Sky”