what if we kissed at the tom verlaine book sale

and I were all softness

between your covers

even though you dm-ed me

that you don’t read

the way I do

 

that’s ok watch me bend my rules

just the way I think you’d bend

my spine if you held me in your hands

 

and this is a text

you’ll never run out of

though I’m no fine print

 

is it funny?

 

how a meme

sums things up so brutally

how the yellow idle crescent

replaces moonlight and my thoughts

chafe at the edges

 

meet me in our hemisphere

we’ll get back to the roots

and bring screen names to life

in a room over washington square …

 

oh well

when the record collection opens up

 

---

Healer Man

They told me not to come to see you

is what I would say if I could.

 

Perhaps you can tell me why that is.

Nothing to report.

 

We will shortly sing in accord

(your potions, my bloodstream, unison).

 

When I said my life is an adventure

it was a warning.

 

Tell no half-truth, kill no spider.

I try to keep my sins venial.

 

I am exposed to anyone wielding a flower.

Canaries sing, trees fall, we are elsewhere.

 

Bring the sound forward, prescription

carved across the blades of my shoulders.

 

Your wisdom is of no use to me,

not the kind that does not live in hands.

 

Look at my shadow and you will catch

the past striding blindly to overtake.

 

Next week, more of the same

(your softness, my sweat, apology).

 

I weave together fragments of text and memory.

If I die, it will be at this loom.

 

---

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Biography

CM Gigliotti is a multi-hyphenate artist with degrees from Central Connecticut State University and the Writers Institute at Susquehanna University. Her work has recently appeared in The Erozine, CommuterLit, The Twin Bill, Prose Poems, and The Literary Times. She lives in Germany. “what if we kissed at the tom verlaine book sale” was first published in print in Acta Victoriana 149.1.