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.
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