Half Tilt Heart*

 

It’s autumn, and I’m in love with another woman for the first time.

Let me just say, I don’t always understand how seasons work.

 

I only eat squash this time of year and it feels, somehow, unfair.

I want her around for much longer than this, but nothing ever lasts.

 

What I do know for certain is that it’s half earth-tilt and half heart.

It’s that time of year when the poets make too much meaning of change.

 

To harvest her with my tongue is chewing stars into water

which is really the act of putting a beautiful person in my mouth.

 

These connections make sense, I promise.

After we open, I smile an Ahhhhh——— flaunting

 

the constellation left on my tongue. Attend closely

as Earth comes with the harvest, how she moans when giving.

 

I want more talk of the halo and my moonstone ring meeting

the crown of my love’s hot moon head—poet that I am—

 

how my middle finger orbits into nebula the tiny death which tilts

the world over, how the earth shakes loose her sugars in season.

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*"Half Tilt Heart" was selected by Dorianne Laux as an honorable mention for Limp Wrist's 2021 Glitter Bomb Award.