losing our grip on purpose

By Jay Aelick

I’d be lying if I said I let you in
for any reason other than the usual mortal ones:

shared tastes in wine, a promise
of good conversation, and hope

that in the end you’ll like me
enough to take me, make me

like you. Give me a second face so that I become
non-binary, approachable from any angle,

though never quite the same one twice;
bisexual in the way two implies a sequence

of infinite additional integers. Janus,
make this space a threshold, always narrow,

no matter how tall or wide. Turn out the lights
and pull the cord so that the blinds can only squint.

Make the room small enough that even I can fill it.

 

Jay Aelick is a birdwatcher, teacher, tarot reader, and sometimes even poet. Their work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum, Door Is A Jar, Okay Donkey, nw{p}, The Quarter(ly) Journal, and elsewhere. They are one half of the St. Balasar University English Club podcast, where real critique partners at a fake university workshop the books the internet had written off.