The Uninvited
Each night, I dream of people unmasked,the kind who want me to hope,
the ones who still learn to swim.
I show them all the places that fish
have been known to drown
like coins wafting down a well,
and I tell them all how not to fall
prey to the snake, the virus,
the shark, the gin, but each night
they die anyway, and I wake to words
of a forlorn déjà vu more akin to bears
fooled by springtime winter snaps.
Each night when the dark anvil leans
over me, the mob of townies approach
to ask again how to withhold breath
in space, how to stay together in storms,
how not to be found absurd in the end.
Because these bodies are not offered
by chance or in reflections of fears,
or in collections of joys shaken together,
pressed down, running over into my lap.
They come back to me each following night
to question how many more warm days,
flat seas, or low tides will be given,
how many scales will fall from the fish
found nailed to the tree, how many
open mouths will swallow the animal fats,
the eggshells, or the dances of worry
now reeking of the earth’s mirror stage
of unsung names, of uneasy actors
holding tight to judgements.
Mikal Wix is a queer writer living in the American South. They are a federal agency social sciences editor and a West Trade Review associate poetry editor, with degrees in both literature and creative writing. Their poems are found or forthcoming in the North American Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Moss Puppy, Olit, Door = Jar, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. Other creative work, including book reviews, can be found here: Poetry Is My Ride or Die | Twitter | Linktree. Tweets @mikalwix, IG: poeticmojo
Art: Zig-Zag #5 a visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2023. Twitter: @frede_kenter IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle
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