print previewback MELISSA BARRETT
Everyone Here Is a Tourist
Shipwreck and seaweed choking the tide. My anatomy,
undone as flotsam, tipping between
the hands of plate-white waves. Only ice. I wish I were
cold. When the pain was about the size
and color of a plum, I used a lot of positive self-talk.
I felt the water at my throat but I
coaxed it into smoke rings, coaxed those
into Hiram in May, which means,
essentially, daffodils. Pity I lost hold of that.
The papers said we’d make it
and I was drunk enough on hope to believe them.
The day I died I told you,
I might be ready. Ready or not. Was that a sin?
I told you, with a silver dollar
stopped over each eye, the horse-drawn shadows
have stopped circling
on the veranda. They stagger toward me now. 
Everyone Here Is a Tourist
Your Virtue Unswerving, But Miles from Any Mark