bisexual ghost part of me is always hidden buried beneath a wedding ring & a husband a piece that people can ignore in a crowded room, no one can see her she’s invisible an opaque sexuality a ghost gathering dust
First Communion I. On the day of my First Communion, I wore a white dress White gloves White shoes White veil To show I was pure Enough to be accepted As a believer I walked down the aisle, A child bride too young to know I was a marrying an asshole— I placed my hands the way The nuns taught us Last week in Sunday school— Left over right Left over right I was interrupted with a memory Of the girl I held hands with Yesterday at recess— My left interlaced with her soft right What did that mean? Left over right Left over right I repeated this mantra Until I was next, burying That beautiful girl & my curiosity Beneath the playground mulch: The body of christ— Amen. II. What would we do first? I whisper into the telephone I think I’ll devour you, a meal I don’t taste No, you reply– We’ll take our time I want to learn your body Practice it like a religion A catholic mass, The body of christ Replaced with your body On my tongue This communion— Our union— More holy Than a childhood Church
Eating Raspberries She and I explore this pint of raspberries made of one Hundred roses decorating each drupelet, Each pair, Pulp and seed. Plucking a raspberry from its hard wood stem, I press it between my Thumb and forefinger, let the tart pink Stain my skin in the crevices of my raised Fingerprint. The sunshine licks the wet juice, like Tomato sauce on wooden planks touched Gently by golden August heat in Sicily for Paste. I push my finger into the hollow core of another Raspberry, feel the soft Velvet of the inside yield to me as I push forward Until it drips down my hands– I meet the moisture gladly with my tongue.
paper mâché moon we’re losing our moon slowly she slips through our outstretched fingers & we’ll lose her completely someday for every rotation around the sun our moon leaves us by one inch –one– it’s so subtle we can’t see her literally inching away from us, retreating over millions of years, inevitable our gravity tries to stretch her small body, bend her rock by force–she pulls our oceans, both of us trying to make the other elliptical we love her too violently, her shape holds but she spins faster & each increase in speed sends her further who could blame us? we’ve never fallen in love with a moon– loving a planet is walking its forests & the moon needs us to swim her ocean she shimmers, shows us a well-lit shapeshifter but conceals her darker side devouring the light of day she’s made of contradictions: her skin is ice & absent atmosphere her core is magma & fury-melted rock we look closely through our ((telescope)) her surface is delicate–porcelain & paper mâché we can see the craters she survived someday we’ll remember this & we’ll forgive her for not wanting the fire of our gravity to burn her alive.
Maddie Portune (she/her) is an MFA poetry candidate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her poems have appeared in genesis and an anthology, Indiana’s Best Emerging Poets. She currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and their cats, Tim and Tony. Find her on Instagram, @maddie.portune.
