Genuinely by Terese Mason Pierre

for Khashayar Mohammadi

I am trying to coax my eyes
into blinking your penmanship.
I want to be devastated if we are
swallowed by the sun.

You write your name
over and over, send
late-night photos,
euthanizing my old self

A phantom casket floats
in the lake on my bed;
some lilacs mature on the
nightstand, at a loss
for arrangement—
pick a beauty, pick a life,
pick a love.

I prefer this to the
prodigal anxiety, a pulse
that rises with the moon.
I am enamored with the
brimming in my chest
that has nowhere to go,
the energy that builds
impossible organs with
my tears and your tenor

Once, you messaged to ask
which sweater I liked more,
then purchased both.
I take your skin, with its burns,
and add it to mine.
We are a team.

I genuinely believe the
quality of our silence
is its own corpus,
dewy with content

On the monitor, audiences
laugh at the right times,
songs persevere for eleven
minutes, aged.

Someone called us powerful,
we let the needy drift away.
I live vicariously in the nest
I have made in your mouth:
faux fur, turquoise, amber,
graphite, rose, the hair
on your earlobe

I no longer count the
hours till your contact.
I know how you feel about
games. You can take the
words right off my face.

This poem was featured in Issue 07 of Canthius. We encourage you to also check out Terese’s other poem published in the same issue, “Whale Fall.”

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Terese Mason Pierre is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Puritan, Quill and Quire, and Strange Horizons, among others. She is currently the Senior Poetry Editor of Augur Magazine, a Canadian speculative literature journal. Terese has also previously volunteered with Shab-e She’r poetry reading series, and facilitated creative writing workshops. Terese lives and works in Toronto. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @teresempierre.