I dreaded that first Robin
    

. . .He hurts a little, though—

— Emily Dickinson

All of this sweetness we savor—a mouth opening
to another’s mouth—softly—lips queerly rejoicing
in lips. Not because poetry’s important but because    
    the robin you saved in a garden is. The garden    
    where you planted more milkweed to rescue

the monarchs. Because it’s all revolving—monarchs,

milkweed, robins—hold the door open for others
and call it a stanza, let the woman with
the screaming children in her cart go ahead
    of you even if she has more toilet paper
    than needed. Call it a line break.

Let it not be a metaphor to love

strangers and lost dogs. Your poem is messy
and raw with emotion because you live
a life you can’t sum up neatly.
    Love odes are everywhere. Love
    that walking into to a drugstore

is its own villanelle. Miracles exist

and so do toothpaste and text messages. Love
how the speaker talks to God, the Universe,
the dead, as sometimes you do. We’re queer
    like that. Sympatico to deities, yet
    afraid of turbulence. Poetry

writes itself, translates our ribcages

into forests of fireflies, deciphering our heartbeats
into flickering light. We want to flirt
    with the extraordinary—to kaleidoscope a comet
    across our inbox, trample the tameflower—

O, the well-behaved flowers of our youth.

What doesn’t haunt me puts its mouth on my mouth.
It’s okay for risk and plans to coexist just as we
understand second-person is just a way to hide
     yourself in a poem. Language plants milkweed
     for the monarchs. Even that early undreaded
robin is welcome in the garden. Let everything in.

Hey Kel, call me, it’s dark. Call me,
I found a light burning in the sunrise
and this morning is sweeter,
not the fixed melancholy of youth.
Hey Kel, it’s Em, slip on my high-
laced boots and call. My secret
password is dontapologizeforthedead.
I miss you. My tulips have fallen
in love with the duskbirds who circle
when we weep. Hey Kel, it’s Em, there’s
an oversized moon tonight and I’m leaning
into my boyhood. You know that library
you loved, I filled it with balloons.
Hey Kel, got your text, call me.
I know you say you’re accidentally
devoted, but what if you’re inadvertently
lustheavy? Unintentionally heartstruck?
There’s enough gravestones in your yard,
you don’t have to touch each one daily.
Hey Kel, it’s Em. You know we’re all right,
right? Sisters who cover their mournings
with a wink, black bras on the blackberry
bushes, the sun is also dying. Hey Kel,
there are afternoons I aspire to be
a bird; there are treefrogs and commas
that end up in the wrong place.
Hey Kel, can you call me
back? Hey Kel, I lit a candle. Call me,
k? On the line. Call me back
when you can, Kel, candle me
when you can’t
call back.

Note: This poem was inspired from voicemails from my sister, Emilie, and the work and letters of Emily Dickinson. “Fixed melancholy” is a direct quote from one of Dickinson’s letters dated 28 March 1846.