I want to watch certain cartoons with you.
Not the bad stuff where breasts get groped
for laughs, but the nourishing stuff, the ones
where girls turn into cats and crystals light
the way. I don’t know how to change
the world. I do know how to make good
blueberry pancakes. The secret is in the vanilla.
I know how to weed around the rosemary bush
so that birds swoop down and gobble up the unearthed
bugs. I admit I don’t know how to keep this soul
inside of this body. It keeps shifting
out. We joke I am made of three eels and a fog spirit
wrapped in a pink bathrobe. The eels squiggle restlessly,
sniffing out salt water. The fog spirit tugs me toward the foothills
in the north. All those rose hips and prospects
of vanishing. It’s an ongoing process to not evaporate.
Can’t tell you how difficult it is. Stay here, you whisper
into my hair. Holding these fingers
that are somehow mine. My soul flickers in
and out of my body to the beat of the song
in the show we are watching on the laptop raised
on your knees. Rain splatters down from the storm drain and
although embodiment often feels like a cinched-up ballgown
of thorns, this is pleasant. I sip lemon tea.
I feel your warmth. I’ll try, I say. I’ll think about it.