Maggie Boyd Hare
In the Shuttle Leaving Earth
I miss the silver fish we watched on Planet Earth while
stringed instruments played and David Attenborough
explained what is going to swallow them. I miss
tangerines, peaches—anything orange with nectar.
Anything once sliced for me by hands I love. Anything
dripping sunset down my chin. Your chin—the way
its stubble pricks my cheeks when you lean in
to say coffee is ready. I miss the warmth of your body,
nestled near me on the couch watching the deep sea
squid light up while David enchants us with its vitals.
The vitality of summer. I miss when it was still
growing hotter, the stretch of all of my limbs
on the concrete. Miss concrete. Miss my skin
tightening, the warmth a kind of pressure I wanted
to withstand like gravity.
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Maggie Boyd Hare is an MFA candidate at UNC Wilmington, where they work as a publishing fellow and as poetry editor for Ecotone. They have work forthcoming in Hayden's Ferry Review.