I wear this man-shirt to the kitchen
in the middle of the night to fix
a bagel. The broken blinds
let my legs onto the street.
My legs run the block and run back.
The feeling of forever
being seated before a screen,
watching people touch each other
would be a terrible feeling.
The feeling of forever
when I watch you sleep is less
lonely than I thought
I deserved to be. We burn
our faces. We go into the dark.
I wanted to be in magazines,
hair fanned like fire
around clear skin, a red mouth,
eyes like two small planets
with their own currencies and laws.
Now I want to sleep and dream
of woods, ethereal fawns wading
spindly legs through grass and mist.
I felt this way when I wanted
my picture in magazines, my face
on-screen between meal breaks,
my mouth saying I was so in love
with someone I had just met.
Gina Keicher is the author of the poetry collection Wilderness Champion (Gold Wake Press, 2014) and the chapbook Here is My Adventure I Call it Alone (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). She is an associate editor for Black Lawrence Press. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, BOAAT, inter|rupture, Whiskey Island, and Best of the Net. She lives in Ithaca, New York.