i
When the wind picked up
and carried you away through the pine trees,
you took shelter in an amber beehive,
kissing the bees in gratitude: nectar, stingers, and all.
I went searching for you,
protected your honey-coated body
from the forest bears
during our hike back home.
ii
After the fall of the tower of Babel,
amid all the celestial, sparkling rubble,
you could only speak the language of flowers.
I was a fast learner,
weaved you colorful meadow crowns,
pressed petals between book pages
you could no longer read,
filled our cottage with blooming houseplants
and whispered against their unfurling leaves:
forget me not, forget me not.
iii
When you lucid-dreamed yourself
into the USS Johnston shipwreck,
you forgot the difference between up and down
and sank like a stone,
scaring away bioluminescent organisms,
challenging the deeps.
I turned into a sperm whale
and caught you in my mouth,
mindful of my needle-rows of teeth.
I swam us both to familiar ground,
moss soaking up saltwater.
iv
All these times you were lost,
I led you back; your beacon, your flare.
Now I’m lost deep in these dense woods
with no compass or stars to guide me.
The cold has teeth and nails.
I’ll curl up right here, in this fern-festooned pit.
I’ll tell the birds to keep an eye out for you.
How will we recognize her? they ask.
I’ll say, My, don’t you know she carries
my heart in her chest?
BIO: Avra Margariti is a queer author and Pushcart-nominated poet with a fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Vastarien, Asimov’s, Liminality, Arsenika, The Future Fire, Love Letters to Poe, Space and Time, Eye to the Telescope, and Glittership. Avra lives and studies in Athens, Greece. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).