by Kelli Russell Agodon
For sake of sake, I incorporate a sushi and a sexy dance
into my poem. Because I am a minor god when I write,
I turn someone I dislike into a zombie, a little
setback for them but just for a minute. A minute
moment where what shimmies is the clematis vines
in the wind, the power lines, the line of coke the man
in the apartment does on his balcony.
I don’t always trust mirrors except when they say,
You are beautiful, and for a minute this stops
the doubts of a world made of muscles that told me
the curve of my ass should be seen smaller
and in soft focus. Can we surrender our ego,
leggo my ego, learn about eagles and not end a poem
on something dark? What is the one thing
you’d take out of a burning house? I asked my lover
when our relationship was burning. When he said,
Myself, I watched our home go up in flames and
maybe like Jack said, we burn, burn, burn
like Roman candles, so briefly on this planet,
a minor god and occasional zombie, firing up
a cigarette in a tango of darkness,
hoping every ember will light the way.
Note: The line we burn, burn, burn like Roman candles is from Jack Kerouac.
Kelli Russell Agodon is a bi/queer poet, writer, and editor from the Pacific Northwest. Her newest books are Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press), which was named a Finalist in the Washington State Book Awards and shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize in Poetry and Demystifying the Manuscript: Essays and Interviews on Creating a Book of Poems coedited with Susan Rich. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press, where she works as an editor and book cover designer. She teaches at Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. Kelli is the cohost of the poetry series “Poems You Need” with Melissa Studdard.
www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com / www.youtube.com/@PoemsYouNeed
Emerge Literary Journal 