after “Poem After Reading the Chapter in Stephen King’s It Where the Word ‘Kike’ Appears Six Times” by Hannah Cohen, “gelato” by Matt Mitchell, & “in lieu of a poem, i’d like to say” by Danez Smith

the adriatic sea is a body of water, so etymologically i am born from pockets of salt / blood / curdled on an ocean / drainage board / elio places his fingers over antinous’ mouth & both of us crave to be /  fucked or fawned over / gently / held at most / i, too, have wanted to run from the venetian humidity of desire & place the star around my neck in my mouth / jewishness & queerness—golden as a prayer / kinahora /  lit by oak & holy wax, elio still mutters this under his breath & spits three times, though no sin exists inside of him or his love / marzia is kissed by elio in an attic, his lips brushing where her bikini borders her pelvis /  never have i ever wanted    to be that beautiful / only to return to myself in a shower-fogged mirror / please just make me worth being wanted / quiet & seductive / royalty enough to envy the melusines / softest vessel, that i am / to touch myself  & not find g-d but instead / understand all the ways in which i unravel like a ghost, turn to  / vapor as a lover in july / while  the peaches spread their blush across the grasses of crema. please: if you call me by your name, i’ll call you to watch as the / xebecs pull into imaginary ports & bottle themselves back onto trains to america.  the essence of the water on the shore is so fresh / you can almost smell the / zagaras.

Adrienne Novy is a Jewish and disabled artist, Bettering American Poetry and Pushcart Prize nominee currently living in Saint Paul, MN. She is the author of trisomy 22 and Crowd Surfing With God (Half Mystic Press, 2018). Her most recent work can be found in Entropy‘s series The Birds, Glass: A Poetry Journal, Homology Lit, and Crab Fat Magazine. She loves My Chemical Romance and she loves being alive.