Poem by Alyssa Bedford // Photograph by Giada Mercuri
Poem by Alyssa Bedford // Photograph by Giada Mercuri
LOTUS EATER
i wrote a poem but forgot
why or
where.
a sun was born and a sun
died all at once and
my eyes watched, unseeing and
absent,
utterly blissful.
the heart wants what the heart
wants and
this heart wants to stop-
to float endlessly in a balmy ocean and
a warm, indifferent sky.
SWIMMING IN SUSPENSION
this morning i woke with a fish in my mouth
(of course, i was confounded at first but
considering you took my beehive, honey-heavy
heart and threw it into the lake,
and considering i haven’t been able to surface since,
it makes sense that reality would eventually
swim its way back to my tongue
and speaking of which-
do you remember what day it was
we went to the lake?
or do lakes not exist anymore?
i can’t
quite
remember.
the water has swallowed me whole for quite
some time now-
which is to say your mouth, your hands, your
bones, your sinew, and synapses are all the
water and you’ve embedded me somewhere
in your undertow.
but oh, how sweet, how crystalline and healing and
alive you are, my love!
your visage thrashes behind my eyelids every morning,
your kisses kick in my teeth.
alive and confounded and awestruck, i am.
who knew you could find grace in a state of
timelessness?
who knew the whole world awaited at
the bottom of the ocean?
or that adoration tastes awfully of
fish?)
