Quick Side-Note to a Girl Who Would Have Wings in a Just World & Craigslist Missed Connection Ad for a Girl On the Wrong Side of The Lake | by Dean Boskovich

Quick Side-Note to a Girl Who Would Have Wings in a Just World 

Actions have no repercussions when you are living
in a vacuum. Some nights will carry you away

on the back of a seagull: 

If you were made out of wood you would
be a basket or a leg on a kitchen table. 

If you were the sunset you would
shine bright pink and go away too soon. 

If you were a basket, you’d be full
of all my eggs and people would ask me why

I was carrying around a basket
full of eggs. These are all I have, I would say. 

If I could do anything besides nurse my hangover
alone in this cafeteria drinking luke-warm coffee, I would be

riding on the back of a hawk over the canyon
where you’re hiking. 

If I hadn’t torn my ACL in high school
I could have been a lawyer or a doctor

or a flight of sparrows heading toward
the Rising Eastern Sun and falling to the ocean floor. 

Supposedly we know more about the universe than the ocean 
but I know for sure that at the bottom of the sea is you. 

You are one of those fish with fucking crazy teeth
and a flashlight for a forehead and hot-tub jets for gills. 

You are powered by pure carbon and hydrogen. 
You would run a marathon if you only had legs. 

You have GPS built into your fins. 
You will swallow the sky when you finally grow lungs.
 
If you were a poem you would be one that someone
else wrote on a bathroom wall. 

You create black holes when you split
a hair in a storm. If I stare into the sun

long enough I’m sure I’ll see you
staring back, or go blind in your absence.
 
And: if you curved into me
last night, on a bed without sheets,

the stars would have fallen
into the ocean to illuminate

the place that exists in between
bad decisions

and repercussions
where you and I thrive.

Craigslist Missed Connection Ad for a Girl On the Wrong Side of The Lake 

You were a dandelion petal that 
somehow landed here. Wearing 
a loose red sweater. I was the one 
lying in bed looking confused. I 
was the one who probably didn’t 
say the right thing at the right time. 
You were a bouquet of pink and 
red and yellow yarrow in a wooden 
box. You were a message in a bottle 
and I was the one standing at the 
wrong side of the sea. There’s a 
dandelion here to remind me you 
were real. We would be two ships 
passing in the night, except boats 
make me anxious and I wake up 
when you are falling asleep. I could 
have been a famous poet with all 
the words I couldn’t find to say 
to you in my fluster. You were 
an old wooden house floating in 
a tornado. You were a stopwatch 
wound for a place where time 
does not care for bread crumbs, 
golden spools, or grand pianos. 
You were a note in a melody. 
I was the out of tune key. You 
may have seen me. Would love 
to get in contact. Do you have an 
address or should I send this note 
via enchanted carrier pigeon?