As a shell-shocked shell-shaped whorl
of a girl, I rock forward into your arms
like falling off something, a logor a jigger filled with everything but stardust.
I perch on the rim too afraid to deserve you,
counting the grains of sugar meant
to kiss the lip of the glass
which is so clean I cannot believe my thumb
from the other side is not actually my thumb;
which sings only under your fingers
and when I try produces a sigh that sounds
disappointingly human and I wonder
if I have let out my air again, deflating
like a grape—just as green but not as lovely.
Hannah Page earned her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in 2022 and has been published or has work upcoming in Tupelo Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, and Eunoia Review.
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