I took three or four men I was intimate with to the Antique Mall within a year. With each of them, I held the blue-china-patterned salt-and-pepper shakers. I twisted my hands in synchronized motion to show off the way the blinding specks of light slid across the enamel, yellowing, stained with coffee. With one, I picked out a green chaise lounge. We imagined the home we could make together for the purpose of housing it. A week later, I showed the same couch to the next one. He said it was pretty. The last bought me a succulent planted in a shallow, double-swan-shaped pot sitting outside, the necks forming a heart. He made us pause in the ancient farm equipment section, tossed rusted railroad track nails in the air just to feel their weight land against his palm, pointed out malformed sickles and things with chains so old and rusted-out they’d never move naturally again. I made each of the men sift through stacks of records. I would give them the roster. Today, we need Bruce Springsteen. Tomorrow, Joni Mitchell. Standing at the same spot, shuffling, gapped by days or weeks or months, their outlines overlapped into each other. Amongst all the Al Green and the oversized cardboard cutouts, every version turned toward my kiss.
Adriana Beltrano is a poet from Jupiter, Florida. She is pursuing her MFA in poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where she is a managing editor of the Hopkins Review. She was named a 2024-25 Jake Adam York Prize finalist, and her work is forthcoming in the South Carolina Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Frozen Sea.
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