Winter Skips

We’re listening to winter
by Tori Amos, our discmans
burning our laps, as the piano solo
unbolts us. You pass me a note that’s
just the number of times you’ve heard it
today: 21.

We get caught staring
at the Leonardo di Caprio poster.
We’re only letting ourselves
go fuzzy for a moment. Skipping
forward because we think
that’s the good part.

You’re typing with an Australian guy
on IRC. You smile imperceptibly
when he sends you files. I’m jealous
of your internet package:
my modem a screaming brick
with ideas of its own.

We stage a scene from Sailor Moon
where Tuxedo Mask is stalked,
tenderly, by a gay alien. We use
flour to dye our hair,
making pancakes in the shower.

Our manuscripts are crammed
into sawtooth binders. You read me
a death, a birth, over the phone
until I can’t feel my cheek.

We’re unknown and furious
in hidden classrooms, plotting
while everyone fails to play Magic:
the Gathering, or maybe just me. Cards
in boxes like organ slices, red, blue,
black. The spell that always wins
if you’re cruel enough to cast it.

In the end, the only move I make
on the boy I love unspeakably
is to destroy his coffee maker.
Flooding the kitchen, twisting
in panic, as he laughs. Then hoses it off
in the yard like a dog’s empty cage.
You’re lucky, he says,
that we love you.

Jes Battis (he/they) teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Regina. Their poetry has been published in The Capilano Review, Contemporary Verse 2, Poetry is Dead, The Puritan (forthcoming), and The Maynard.