after Terrance Hayes Last spring, I hid you in a poem of greenery, described the distance as furious and never thought I would feel that way too. I wrote of sesame seeds spilling from our bagels onto the sheets, scraping my legs all night and all through the summer until you were back. Now I lock your love notes in a quart-sized Ziploc, let my memories slide off like egg yolk. I’ve made you both villain and victim here. The villain is reckless, kissing everyone at the party while I doze off on the inflatable couch at home. The victim is small, shaking in my bed, saying she knows she’ll disappoint me soon enough. I want to forget both of them, but they circle like buzzards around our rotting tree trunk. I write down what you did and radio static fills my chest. I leave that page in a box in a different city. Change the locks. Wash my sheets. For winter, I’m making you a house of paper with scissors for stairs. Windows sealed shut with plastic bags. It is enough to have loved you once. It is enough to hold you overnight.
Leah Kindler is a poet and essayist based in Boston by way of the Chicago suburbs. She is finishing a Creative Writing BFA at Emerson College. Her work has been published in Celestite Poetry, Sonder Midwest, and elsewhere. She has poetry forthcoming in two anthologies in 2022.
Featured Artwork: Edi Sedgwick Jay Armstrong is a writer, musician, visual artist and editor of ANON Magazine living in Austin, Texas. “All graphics are analog-based, circuit-bent, for the initial purpose of projecting live.”