PERSONAL EFFECTS

Don’t be deterred
By the astral fruit bowl here
Dip me into this pleated milk

My ghost on conjugal call
Spit into each others’ mouths for me
I’m waiting
I’ll never get tired of waiting

Preened in the light of kindness
Universal love for all humanity, that hot button
It hits different if you’re sleep-deprived

To be hungry for ongoing collision
Is to hold hands with the earth
Water softly spooling
Over a marble brow

I move through the melons
With the heart of a swordsman
I’m wide awake
You and me both, Toots

Your gaze trepans my invisible body
Punctured by love’s boundless chaos
Our realest consolation prize

Send me an angel right now
Thirty-six wings and countless eyes
Me too bitch, me too

Megan Freshley is a queer poet living in Portland, OR, and author of the chapbook Hypnic Jerk (The Hunger Press 2021). She is a graduate of Antioch College, the Esalen Institute, and the MFA program at Portland State University. Her poems appear in Portland Review, Witch Craft Magazine, 1001, Old Pal, and others.