KATHERINE GIBBEL

I would like you to take
a photo with me;
for my obscure notions
to become more fixed.
A 100% fake
smile, all eyes.
Yes, hand me another flute.
I’ll tell you something inane.
Love is a lightproof box
against which I’ve pressed my mouth.
Yes, give me your hand
Yes, hold my hand over the hole
of that empty camera.
Kiss me hard. Make me feel it.

It’s like like like. It’s like
a look across a lake—its like-
ness a sea monster
swimming out of hell.
I’m like huh.
What do you think love is like?
You who are my lake, my like,
you who are a ton of bricks, or that lichen
on this rock, what makes
the background take a closer look.
You, who when I close
my eyes. You, when I ask myself
what it’s like. You look
into the distance. You look at me.

A ‘bride’ in the dictionary
is the dark crimson under-
wing moth sputtering against
the page. The page kisses

the next as it turns. A ‘bride’
is in the process of wedding just as
a wing flicks itself into flight.
Her hand dresses yours.

In the middle of the ceremony
you both drink a beer.  
A word comes unfixed
from the book of love.

Love spreads its hand against the page.
Love doubles back, then proceeds.
 

Katherine Gibbel’s poems have been published in The Chicago Review, jubilat, Second Factory, and elsewhere. She edits and prints Send Me Press, a monthly series of letterpress printed poems. She holds an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Windsor, VT. Her manuscript Re the Waves was a finalist for the 2022 National Poetry Series and her chapbook Prairie is available from Ethel Press.