Ripe
after Natasha Rao’s “Cornucopia”
When we got together,
every breakfast tasted
like an envelope unsealed.
Strawberry jam, honey goat cheese
on French toast under a wide open sky.
Three a.m. pizza must have been blessed;
we ate the whole pie
sitting crisscrossed on the floor.
Cookie dough ice cream from the corner shop
melted down our hands
and soy sauce and ginger stickied her fingers
which I licked gratefully. Strangers
kept buying us free drinks and coffee
(we called it hot girl magic)
our closets overflowing with new lace.
The sound of her tuning nylon strings
as I slept, fast and hard. When I remember
my broken heart, I consider alternate forms
of permanence: the scar forming
on her arm, like a tiger swipe.
Her body opening to mine.
*
How do I know when to be quiet
when the lark’s shrill song
does not waver from the jackhammer?
These are both ways of taking
up space. He wants me to read
the book he sent so we’ll have something
to talk about. I can’t admit I never read
science fiction. My phone trills
in twilight, invitation to enter
rooms I fear inhabiting. How the sharp edges
of my body contort into a vessel
for drinking. I want to be surprised—I want someone
to come knocking with a bottle of red wine. I want
to guzzle it. Robins drunk
on psychedelic rainwater. Wake hot and clear.
How do I know whether he wants to kiss me
if I’ve never heard his voice. We send pictures.
He disappears for days. It’s okay.
This time, I don’t want to beg. I try
doing nothing at three p.m.
while he clocks in at the restaurant
(He is bending me over the bar).
In Brooklyn, everyone is wet
from desire & making out.
Even the birds who pass
seeds between their mouths.
*
Hanna Webster is an award-winning journalist and poet with an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared in HAD, Bellingham Review, Epiphany Mag, BRUISER Mag, Fifth Wheel Press, and elsewhere. Webster’s chapbook, “I’m So Glad I Stuck Around for This,” was a semifinalist for the 2024 YesYes Books Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.