Freeform Friday: Poetry Night

Poetry Night
by Belinda Roddie

The tiger prowls. The raven learns acrobatics, yet knows all. The boy I loved bought sushi at the corner store while I attended the omakase and felt the lady's lips melt in my mouth like blue crab on rice.

Hollowed out, lightheaded ones attend us at our flawed apocalypse. Meanwhile, we cannot wake up. We dream in water from the Liffey, half-asleep though it be, as our words in essay form become as fragile as glass. Hypotheticals yank their pearl necklaces like snakes from their bared throats. They were gullible royalty - now they are red earth and blue sky, salt. Nothing more.

Divide my heart from my torso, and you will find gravity in kisses. You, my first sip of bourbon. You, my farewell in a moment. You, my laughter in a moment of online static. You, my homosexuality on the rocks. You, my five string guitar. How I adore nectarines, and you are my nectarine! My Ogden Nash to cleanse the palate! My heart is very like a whale - is yours swollen like mine is swollen, or are those simply our veins?

I do know this: I don't know shit. But if I see a sunrise in this black hole, perhaps there is light after all.

Thank you to my fellow poets Ari Rodarte, Lianne Ratzerdorfer, Anne Carson, Frank O'Hara, Eavan Boland, Ogden Nash, Patrick Braue, Laine Flores, Edgar Allan Poe, Robyn L. Paul, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Rachel Kann, Jen LoPresti, and John Ruzicka.