Somehow I Betrothed Myself to a Fish Girl
Emma Sovich
It’s simple: her hands were in mine and she flummoxed. I stumbled and while I can’t father anything I took what was given. To further. Gill-guilted she sat in my hands. I threw her as far as I could. I lost her. Yet here she was, glassily finned and gasping. Her head a watermelon. Eyes I can’t even remember. Her hands were in mine and her tail thrashing and waves thrashing and heart my hearts thrashing I raised her up. I said nothing and yet.
The Sword Removed From Stone
Emma Sovich
Nothing as simple as sex anymore. The women holding hands are holding hands. The men hold hearts. Friendship complicates everything. A smile meant for a lover is disingenuous or it isn’t. The men and women holding exchange gems they were holding. Woven with every color burst of insinuations. Hugs chastened. Pecks without tongue. Saliva at the corners of some mouths.
The sword returned to stone. I am a boy again. Still no libido. How often is a handshake met with a gaze. We wring our hearts and saliva or something dribbles down our chests. This more complicated than a porno. The twitching of ears overwhelms the twitchety wink. Laden, we are soft and smooth and held.
Remove the sword. Return it. Remove. Return. What is important. Not the friction but the end state. We insist.
My Lady is My Gentleman
Emma Sovich
With blue eyes then red then blue I don’t expect consistency. Wisdom lacking power is at best advice. At best my lover holds hands high and demands promises. At best my lover is my lover.
I fell in awe with hands that moved over smooth surfaces and lips that pursed to stop time. I fell in awe with a child who relied on me but did not need me. My heart has swollen.
My lover took from me what I borrowed. We had little time and my lover took that too. When we are children we are friends. When we are children we will never be lovers.
We are grown. Lover is at best a word for friend.
EMMA SOVICH lives in a graveyard in Tuscaloosa, where she is an MFA candidate in both the Book Arts and Creative Writing programs at University of Alabama. She spent the summer riding Epona, sailing the sea, and turning into a wolf and back again. Her poems can be found in or forthcoming from Weave, DIAGRAM, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, among others. She blogs at Graveyardhouse.com.