Open your day up

like a newspaper or a bodega

don’t cross your legs—varicose veins

that subjugation line, payment for payment of our

own castration, mitigation

tamping down our hurt to

sip from the teacup

of second class citizenry

she has short hair and heavy boots and I’d like her to kiss me into the

lines of a Joan Miro

I see her from across the library lobby and I am in love with her.

we are geometry, fit together

not always easily but in rectangle and purple

coral pyramids

did the coral reefs survive? I ask

Isabelle, sitting next to me, Isabelle checking her phone, I see Isabelle, these days

from beyond the mask of screen, and I fear the worst:

the coral reef is dead.

this is a bad year for the earth

a bad year for people who do not

look like me

i bake eggplant while everyone sleeps

and when they wake up, it has exploded

because I have been taught to meet and exceed expectation

what if i just feel in love, fell in heels over ears into bed with you and

i kicked off your heavy boots with my bare feet and we planted rosemary

in them to ground our bodies

back to earth?

When I turn to look for her, she’s gone.

You’re ok, says Isabelle

The reefs aren’t dead yet.

 

Molly Fessler

 

Molly Fessler grew up on a llama farm outside Detroit, and studied at Bryn Mawr College. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, serving in Belize from ’14-’16. She is currently a medical student at the University of Michigan. Co-founder of Auxocardia, an online journal for health professional students, she can be found at auxocardia.com or @molly_fessler on Twitter.

© 2021