KISS EVERYONE YOU CAN, FOR SURE
— title from Alex Dimitrov’s “Sunset on 14th Street”
— a twin cinema for the end of the line & those there with us
It was the end of the world &
we tore foil from champagne bottles,
we bore our bodies close,
we toasted each other across a fire
as we pointed out Orion’s belt in the
expanse. We did not feel the cold,
made mammal by this pilgrimage
the length of sand, instead watched our hands
spark, their caterwaul of
careening light. Your palms. Stay with me in
this moment, my friends. Your voices—
hands silt stained and wet from each time we
touch glass bottle to glass bottle. Here
the waves still remember starlight
we kissed on beaches,
& it could have been our teeth— how
your faces were beautiful,
& I swear fireworks perforated the dark
sky above us. For a moment—unmade
marooned, tilting our mouths in cries
porous as fingerprints, swaths of light emptied,
or what we call opening, in the night. The
red blossoms, our consummate
prayers our bodies will bear watch
beyond the line of water rolling in. We marvel,
praise transfiguration, & crane heaven eyed,
in unmoving silence dyed blue
until the year empties.
Han Olliver is a trans artist and poet in New York City. Their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from them, The Lingua Journal, Hobart Pulp, Redivider Poetry, and elsewhere. They are currently working on their first manuscript. Haunt them @hanolliver