Elizabeth Galoozis
Don’t Be a Stranger
Be something more interesting,
a ghost, maybe. An earworm.
Materialize in a dream to kiss me on the nose
without showing your face.
Skirt the edges of my awareness; surface
when I’m pulling warm underwear out of the dryer,
pushing my thumb into a rotten orange.
Be neither blank nor crisp; stay out of focus
just enough to get the gist.
A flare of pain in my shoulder, a spark
in my sacral chakra.
The desire to pour a drink.
A glass etched with age, the contents of the glass.
The ice, the whiskey, the cherry.
Yes. Be the cherry.
Elizabeth Galoozis
Elizabeth Galoozis’s poems have appeared in Air/Light, Pidgeonholes, RHINO, Witness, Sinister Wisdom, and elsewhere. Her obsessions/passions include word games, stone fruit, and stationery. Elizabeth serves as a reader for The Maine Review and Abandon Journal, works as a librarian, and lives in southern California. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @thisamericanliz, and at her website https://elizabethgaloozis.wordpress.com/.