Two Poems by Kelli Russell Agodon

Spell to Find Meaning in Life

Stand on a cliff
until a redtail hawk mistakes you
as a friend, but don’t look down.

Trust the sense of heaven
even if you don’t
believe in heaven.

You may die skinny
dipping in the Mediterranean
or be hit in the head

by a loose screw sailing to earth
from above. You might drop dead
doing yoga. Done. Whatever

way, your future corpse awaits you.
Smile at the idea of your skull outside
your skin. Your bones like drumsticks

banging on a tympany. I saw a sweatshirt
that read, I just want my funeral
to sell out—to be that loved.

You are actually standing
on the cliff right now. Look down,
look down, look around.

*

Where I’m from: GenX Version

         after George Ella Lyon

I am from a folded note from a friend
passed beneath desks, evenings of talking
on a rotary phone. I am from eating
butter out of the container and always wanting
the cookies to be raw. I am from a paint-by-
number Last Supper in the hallway and
a Harvey Wallbanger god. From sitting
on the mustard-colored couch waiting
for love to drive by. I am from a mercury-
in-the-sink-broken-thermometer childhood,
watching Lawrence Welk with my Nana
while she knits everyone a scarf. I am
from payphones on the sunny side of a road
and the downpour of a neighborhood,
from kickball in the cul-de-sac until 10 pm
and no streetlights except the moon. I am from
children with no curfew, from go-out-and-play,
and popsicles cure split lips. I am from melting
crayons on the sidewalk for fun, ice cream truck
afternoons, skateboard down a hill, banana
bike with a basket and no one in a helmet.
I’m from scarred legs and burying the dead
rabbit we found by the creek of waterbugs.
I am the love letter of a generation who
had parents but weren’t parented, I am
the song who learned who to write herself.

*

Kelli Russell Agodon is a bi/queer poet from the Seattle area. Her book Accidental Devotions will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2026. Her previous collection, Dialogues with Rising Tides, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. Kelli is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press and teaches in Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. She is also the cohost of the poetry series Poems You Need with Melissa Studdard.
www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com / www.youtube.com/@PoemsYouNeed