Poem in Which an Eclipse Passes, but You Still Don’t Love Me

That day, I watch two dancing fish

in our campus garden’s pond. I call

the pale one Moon and red one Sun

and imagine they are us.

Empty-bellied, light-deprived,

Moon brushes Sun’s face with their tail

until the dance stops.

Moon swims away,

alone.

That’s how I know Moon is me—

queer fish in a straight pond—

and you are just another Sun.

That day, you watch the real eclipse

somewhere else on campus,

staying far from my orbit.

I sit with the fish and plead:

Can we at least love each other

in Eclipse Time?

That transient, mystical minute when

moon and sun can embrace?

But the moon strays from the sun again,

and you don’t come to dance with me.

We are still who we are, and

even an eclipse can’t change us.

Sea in Me

“But [my love] is all as hungry as the sea,

And can digest as much.”

—Twelfth Night

What’s inside me isn’t sad.

It leaks not just from my eyes.

It’s soaked my insides all

this time. Those who’ve waded by

never dared to dive

into the depths of

desperation

gurgling in my guts.

But you have whetted the sea

in me: waters I swallowed

for so long.

Ink in your hair has

dissolved in my skin.

Now my body aches to regurgitate

you in floods of liquid love

I’ve never shared on paper.

You see them in their sea-green glory:

saliva-waves of love,

acid-waves of love,

sweat-waves of love,

milk-waves of love,

blood-waves of love!

You baptize yourself in it all.

I will let it lap you up.

Ollie Sikes (they/them) is a young queer writer based in Dallas, TX. They hold a double BA in Creative Writing and Theatre from Butler University. Currently, they’re interning with Copper Canyon Press and EJL Editing and serving as Editorial Assistant for Broad Ripple Review. Though they were published multiple times in Butler’s undergrad lit mag, this would be their first professional publication.