by Kara Dorris

I love you like a cruise ship loves icebergs
like the coliseum embraces ruin.
I often like to play the if-you-were-dead game
& use your body towel (or the shirt you’re wearing)
to dry my hair. I love you like a stamp
on my passport. I use your razor to shave
my underworld areas & secretly watch
& rewind our tv shows so you never know.
I love you like a pair of flipflops loves the tide,
like a split pineapple, like curly hair loves
the rain. Every day I love so many someones
I’ve never met. They love me too.
I love you like a flame loves a candle holder.
You love me like a candle holder holds a flame.

Kara Dorris is the author of two poetry collections: Have Ruin, Will Travel (2019) and When the Body is a Guardrail (2020) from Finishing Line Press. She has also published five chapbooks, including the prose collection Carnival Bound [or, please unwrap me] (The Cupboard Pamphlet, 2020). Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, DIAGRAM, Hayden Ferry Review, RHINO, Tinderbox, Puerto del Sol, and Crazyhorse, among others literary journals, as well as the anthology Beauty is a Verb (2011). Her prose has appeared in Waxwing and the anthology The Right Way to be Crippled and Naked (2016). She has made a career of failing, of never being satisfied with her own writing. She loves ekphrastic poetry, slow country mornings, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, swimming laps, and taking naps with her husky. For more information, please visit karadorris.com.