Two Poems
by Ben Kline
FEVER
The comet’s intrusion heated the stratosphere to a third degree
pink. Its coma became fire, plume, screaming, unexpected
debris, why you forgot to text me about your antibody
results. I ran toward the sirens. Did you lose your phone
in the bay where the ferry capsized? You swam
three miles, saved yourself, toes and lungs
cramping. Did you have the false
frostbite? Could you taste blood
or not? I arrived at the beach, heaving,
shedding my coat, saw you shivering under the pine,
bare arms wrapped around a paramedic’s waist,
your knees on the yolk-splattered duffle, disregarding
who saw us buy that palette of toilet paper and fifty bags
of ice melting in the truck for twenty minutes
I spent wondering which end
was really ours
or just mine.
UNMUTE
The assistant dean calls on me
in the grid of avatars and eye crust,
selfish lap cats, hair defying physics,
kumbaya as a blanket over the world
afire. The squares smolder.
Someone had asked why work
feels more stressful in pajamas,
and I answer, Our brains
have learned to pixelate the distance
between us, because our eyes cannot
focus on a few cubes in ten thousand
vibrating against a dimension
where spike proteins and lipid
membranes are pubescent lovers,
excited, slippery, willing to die.
Several cameras go dark. Others
log out. Someone types troll troll troll!
in the chat. A tailless calico
in the bottom right adds dsdf asas fasdfsd
fdfghjgkhl45. I hear two, maybe
more, crying. Someone mumbles
Do any of you miss me?
Ben Kline lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, drinking all the coffee and gin. His chapbook SAGITTARIUS A* will be published in October 2020 by Sibling Rivalry Press. A poetry reader for The Adroit Journal and Flypaper Lit, he is the 2020 recipient of the Christopher Hewitt Award for poetry and a finalist for The Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. His work appears in The Cortland Review, Impossible Archetype, No Contact, DIAGRAM, Hobart, Juked, A&U Magazine, and many more. You can read more at https://benklineonline.wordpress.com/.
