in this world we’ve made there are flowers that live 
rather than die in the cold, our bodies blooming against 
the river and never alone. your body scarred from taking
what is yours, the cracks in your heart deepening 
with each slow inhale. i have only ever wanted to be that fragile,
watching you find your body somewhere so far 
from body, slipping in and out of that hidden place 
like a snake through winding branches. unseen, tasting 
blossoming things if only to become light incarnate. this is eating
away at that rot inside, the morning sun
through your opaque window, a scratchy drawing 
of somewhere beautiful. those sticky things
not even the crows want, so picky but you’ll beg them 
to eat you from the inside of your chest, different 
than it could be but today you don’t care
because we’re standing in the water and all the lights
are out. in the riverbed sadness doesn’t exist,
in these floating places it is the easiest to be everything 
and nothing at all. fingertip to fingertip, a silent confession 
to nothing and the birds inside of you. don’t you know
seeing me means you know me? they all must know this, 
these strange and secret bodies, why they squawk
an i almost love you as you are, an i can’t understand. in the water 
i find you between your wings and chest and the streetlight 
goes out again, a bright and fleeting goodbye. a question 
marked in the light behind your eyelids. an ending,
one ripple at a time.

About the author:

Madeline Augusta Turner prefers to be covered in glitter. Her writing, research, and work are centered around soil, love in the face of apocalypse, and place-based healing.  Madeline has received a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship, the Smith College Elizabeth Babcock Prize for Poetry, and a Fulbright fellowship. Read more at madelineaugustaturner.com and say hello anytime on Instagram @madelineaugusta.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash