Tonight's Poet Corner: This Again

This Again
by Belinda Roddie

And we're back full circle,
drinking fire from cans, checking
our wristwatches for the full moon. We

have done this over and over again -
over half-melted ice cream, over coagulated
Jell-O shots. We have stirred our own hearts
up in brine just to see if the sweetness
would overpower the salt.

I am desperate for your attention, but time
is eroding like the shoreline, and the heat
outside is getting to me. My vertigo paints
you green and gold, and you rise in front of me
like an evening demon, ready to sap the energy

from me, preserve it in amber, and leave it
like an insect trapped in a jewel of artificial
human-saturated history.