Science Fiction

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“He’s boring and tries to make it more like a decision than an accident.”

—Carrie Fisher on Harrison Ford

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Suppose you were

allowed, and bored.

 

My crush is famous.

Like all crushes,

 

you say. This is not a

make-out session

 

with a poster. Okay? 

Men want their

 

swimsuits

autographed.

 

You and I could

build a better rock.

 

I always say that.

I’m sorry—

 

I’m talking

planetary now.

 

Suppose you were

bored, and accidental.

 

He might have

worn his

 

wedding ring.

I don’t know—

 

I’m not kissing a

cologne ad. I’m

 

kissing a character.

I autographed

 

his swimsuit

without him

 

asking. Call me

presumptuous, but

 

I do suppose.

Darling, and how.

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The Sylvia Plath Effect

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I held my glinting.

Explicit—the gurney.

 

Stay humble he said,

and he was powerful.

 

I was smooch adjacent.

It’s alive! I said

 

about myself.

I coaxed a rose

 

out of my escape.

Hallowed be thy

 

frame. Like a darling,

I have been known

 

to wear my flight.

Between creativity

 

and mental illness

there is a candle

 

I have not failed.

Sylvia, it shakes.

 

Within that spell,

we love the

 

worms like

waxen stems.

 

Every trick has its

recovery. Every stem

 

has its boast. I have

lain in the gurney.

 

The mental health worker

asks me for my phone

 

number, winks, and I—

total, sound—give it to him.

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