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issue 3: HEATWAVE

won●der●land

ERICA ABBOTT
A clock ticks somewhere
             in the distance and sends

me spinning straight into
             the eye of a hurricane. Blink

and heat shimmers on the slicked
             surface, a golden haze settling

on roads we have gone down
             before but are now unrecognizable.

It moves in waves, like the ocean
             did the summer we ran barefoot

down the splintered boardwalk,
             past the twisted dunes, found oasis--

This rippling mirage clouds time
             and we allow our scorching skin

to melt away like sweet confections
             into those swelling seas of dreams.

I run my sticky cotton-candy fingers
             through your saltwater-laced hair

and watch them dissolve before
             sinking my teeth into your bottom lip--

just to see what life could have been like
             if we had stayed on the same wavelength.

I fight reality and leap towards Wonderland
             pier in the hopes of falling down the rabbit

hole and preserving the fantasy that lets
             ​me find us there once again and stop time.

Erica Abbott has been published in Toho Journal and Flora Fiction. She will be releasing her first poetry chapbook this year, titled Self Portrait as a Sinking Ship. Find her on Instagram @poetry_erica.
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header photo: alex lamb (unsplash)

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