"South Florida" by Leigh Chadwick

The morning rises every morning. I dream my head bleeding. I don’t know why. When I wake up, I dress my eyes in Gucci and coat my throat in Motrin. For breakfast, I fall in love with your nose three times. Outside, willows weep. Jesus keeps sneezing from all the Myrrh. Days dressed as toothpaste, I tell you I wish I had a reason to walk you home from school. It’s a light beer kind of day. On TV, Jimmy Butler walks up and down the aisle of a private jet, singing Hootie and Blowfish. For lunch, I subtweet my subtweets. I take you to the zoo, where we spend the afternoon staring at the sky, counting the balloons vacationing in the clouds. I wear you home even though you’re a decade too heavy. For dinner, I build you a poem about the river that swallowed the smaller river. I tell you, Eventually, even water goes dry. I tell you, I could kiss you and I know exactly why.

Leigh Chadwick is the author of the poetry collection Your Favorite Poet, the chapbook Dating Pete Davidson, and the collaborative poetry collection Too Much Tongue, co-written with Adrienne Marie Barrios. She can be found online at www.leighchadwick.com and on Twitter at @LeighChadwick5.