Measuring
​
A hop, skip, and a jump
across mason jars that connect us 
in the kitchen, your aprons have never 
matched mine. I always see if we can throw 
spoonfuls of sauces across the island 
to each other. I think we should constantly 
be testing the laws of attraction
and of fate. When we sleep sometimes 
I pretend you’re someone else
so when we wake up I can’t lie 
to myself before I look at you,
so I can’t prepare what I feel. 
I need that one renewed, fresh second 
of feeling, seedling of truth before 
we start to scatter spices on counter tops 
throughout the day 
and finish each other’s recipes. 

Offer Kindness

​When you tell someone
to go fuck themselves
you should be willing
to be more constructive.
Offer diagrams.
Suggest state-of-the-art
stretching regimes.
Share your favorite
genital enhancements.
Go the extra mile
to support their success.

Pollination

Among the summer green
                          we walk with adolescent
palms picking honeysuckle and sharing
                                           our sweet. He picks the good
 
ones for me and tells me to lick
                              the nectar. We race
to the house and back, catching
 
our breaths, faces
                                 blushed, and golden
 heat. 
                                            I remember
 
the backyard trail and its dust: 
the dirty taste
 
in my mouth. I wonder what we 
                            said on those walks, our prepubescent
legs carrying sweat and grime. I give him 
                             a bracelet that says sexy and run 
 
away, far too young to commit
                            to such a statement, far 
too shy to admit
                            I want to.

On Laughing Woman with Ice Cream Cone
 
He was this little guy
with a camera
Reflection faint
in the window
Claimed he only photographed
Beautiful Women
a cement mixer
churning
promise of fame
invitation for drinks
and that’s when I laughed

Unbecoming

Like the Tortoise and the Hedgehog,
Best Beloved,
I became something I was not
to protect myself.
A strange, exotic creature
all sliding scales and sly, slanted snout
suspicious of the world I lived in –
but that was not me.
So I began to shed my armour
bit by bit, plate by plate
until I was left so very raw and unprotected.
Ah, but finally!  –
the glow of the sun on my back
the tickle of the breeze on my cheek
the kiss of grass on my feet –
finally I was free.

Morgan Plessner is a poet with her MFA from the University of New Hampshire. She has been published in Ink & Voices, Foliate Oak, and Underwood Press's Black Works, with publications forthcoming in Allegory Ridge and Reality Break Press. ​

Unanticipated Risks​

He invested his affections, weekly earnings
and she lapped it up, heavy cream
couldn’t get enough of that sweet stuff
 
his personal assets rose along
with his self-esteem, until she drilled deep
posing unanticipated risks
 
when he lost his job and found her cold shoulder
he had to cap spending, write-down their relationship
a premature devaluation as if his teeth yellowed
hair thinned and abs slackened too early
she will haunt him, his losses
stay on the books.