ISSUE: Winter 2019
Wine between cacti and carnivorous flytraps,
our bodies syncing to the DJ’s bad decisions,
I can’t stop getting turned on
by the idea of myself
somewhere without neighbors,
out by a river called Rogue or Big something.
I’m in a greenhouse corner with Katie,
her perfect American jeans
and baby eyes that widen adorably
when she sees something surprising.
Lights, snaked through the pots,
color our faces with neon-pink blinks.
There are lots of petable leaves
and she would like to get married
to a hypothetical being, grow a human, the whole shebang.
We talk about how frightening this is to want
and we talk about horses,
a topic I know as an idea and she knows actually,
kind of like how we both know marriage,
but opposite. And Out There like Ideas
the bears are. And the solitudes are.
And her husband. And the fish I could stab in the head
myself to gauge if I should ever eat flesh
again. And In Here is a pleasure
I’m allowing to continue. O Cowardice,
there’s one plant in this conservatory
made of glass and I’ve found it.
