by Kelli Russell Agodon
We, too, want things. You call it hope, I call
it, Less regret. I google “When does Mercury stop
its retrograde?” We’re only on day two. We, too,
crave less pain. Every conversation is a celebration,
you believe this because our bodies are
temporary even though we pretend everything
endures. We try to fool the gods by buying
the latest iPhone, sealcoating our driveway.
Our ghosts will salute our charade.
Yesterday I cried over something
that hasn’t happened yet—loss stalking us
like a predator. You said we’re all poet Titanics
circling paper icebergs. Lean into
the crash, you laugh. And I picture us,
half-smiling, in wooden lifeboats—
tiny moons orbiting a bright, dying world.
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 