Not so carefully, he is alive, and I am too—
Morton salt of these kayaking fears, we have rowed
so far to reach this kitchen. One of us forgot how to cry.
The other lost the relation- ship between body
and the world. We are not dead yet between the sheen
of the counters, tomatillo and shrimp, and shared spaces.
We hug, ignore the ants and the heat, across the table,
being okay with what the Pink Stuff could not scrub up.
I wasn’t looking for this, yet peace, the middle. I want this to stay.
They say “God”; I say “my love is”; they say “not an absolute”;
ABOUT:
H. E. Riddleton is a neurodivergent, femby poetess who, in addition to writing, searches for pretty things on the ground, learns more and more about how everything is connected, and watches Star Trek: DS9 with their partner. Their most recent publications include or are forthcoming in Beaver Magazine, Fairytale Review, The Autoethnographer, Snapdragon: A Journal of Love and Healing, mutiny! literary magazine, Defunct Magazine, and About Place Journal. They are a full-time tutor at their local community college. They had an abortion in Texas in July 2021.
EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: In Between — Surf Rock Is Dead
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