What the Alive Would Like to Believe by Alisabeth Shine

What the Alive Would Like to Believe
by
Alisabeth Shine

It is January. I am enthused about being cowardly
And so I will accept this limp jungle of a household.
Together, we decline the use of the clown car.

We walk to Kansas. I neglect
myself when Neptune hardens towards the ground,
but the air stands still like a soft fence
And we repel. Out of the same city, animals live.

My darling, the balmy weather will lift us like pillows
from the black-hearted heavens, and when we depart,
we will let go. We will let go separately. Everyone's together.
Women become pregnant for this, for as little as this.

And what of the alive? They fly with hats
in hand on their paper airplanes. They are less like paper
and more like air, if air ever congealed. They accept
to be damned, thigh, mouth, and belly button.

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