M M Porter

On Shaking Hands

You, in a blue cardigan, saying, Strawberry
salad or anything, really, fist open 

& looking. We interlace & I pulse
some projection of your funeral: 

see every cornflower & delphinium. See
your body nowhere. Your body on the table. 

There’s a picture—you always took
so many pictures. It hurts 

how I can’t un-conjure this. Every farewell
throated & weeks later, mid-camp night, 

these hurricanes happen: fingers skim.
Tongues unravel. Even now, I can’t quite

find water the way it is: on the desk,
in a bottle, waiting to be grabbed.

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M M Porter is attending Ohio University to pursue her PhD in English with an emphasis in Poetry. She is a graduate of the MFA poetry program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Originally from Michigan, she continues to pursue the arts and hopes to one day teach creative writing with others who share her passions.