[quality time]

by Jessica Morey-Collins

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I am a flock of often
lost over a chop besotted ocean–

a ten hour yawn straight down-
ward. Hoarder of

boredom, floor made of doorways,
I’ll collect your attention in barrel

drums, wear your staring out
in public. Love is the thunder come

from an excess of heat-trapping
gases–the flat circle of time

filled with my image. And as lead
leaches into our groundwater,

I’ll hound your sky for a drink.
Each hour as a doll infinitely nesting,

and us reflected in every temporal direction.
You’ll be a pall around my shoulders–holding

both storm and warming peripheral, as given
as your listening. Let’s laugh over glasses

of rainwater, cloud our horizons and fly to-
ward toward no shore at all.