Living Notes

As a reminder to play, contemplated cocktail
swords for finger tattoos on each of our hands.
Swashed. Considered the bacteria
slurped up by my drink off the skin
of a pierced lemon, a different part for my hair.
I felt tenderly toward the flaw’s expression.
After the flaming sugar cube failed
to totally dissolve, took it as a reminder
of what will remain, the loose hair of loss
ever entangling itself. Celebrated alongside
my love the discovery of a pea crab
inside an oyster’s shell. Became an orchid
then explained to a stranger’s child a reason not to
shoo away a good-news bee. Watched a storm ruffle
the lake surface and rough up un-staked tents
someone dodged on his way to join me.
When I walked, it was chin-up, a smile
latched to my face like a leash.
It wasn’t that I felt made obedient but I was
trying something on, my whole head a dressing room
inside of which many things stood naked.

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Kristi Maxwell is the author of nine books of poems, including Wide Ass of Night (Saturnalia Books, 2025); Goners (Green Linden Press, 2023), winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize; My My (Saturnalia, 2020); Realm Sixty-four (Ahsahta Press, 2008), editor’s choice for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize; and Hush Sessions (Saturnalia,2009), editor’s choice for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She’s a professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Louisville.