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Poetry

The night I learn that quantum mechanics says that in trying to observe something you alter it

Bleah Patterson

oh and when my lips met

somewhere behind your ear

you prickled, hand too soft as you

pushed me back and

  I say I was just trying to whisper

something but you moved, or I say

I was just trying to fix you–

–r necklace but couldn’t see the clasp for

your hair, or I don’t say

anything at all and when your

hand finds my hand     during a

prayer we’ve already made peace with

ignoring I am a padlock

I want to hold you– r hand not

tell you the code make you

  stay that way but you’re so wet

you’re silk ing away running a

     faucet I forgot to pay the water bill

they turn you off you stand and

lift your hands to Him and I am

trying to figure out how to swim

    just to stay inside of you but as soon

as I start to wade you’re turning

away again

"Fatata te Miti (By the Sea)" by Paul Gauguin
Bleah Patterson (she/her) is a southern, queer writer born and raised in Texas. A current MFA candidate and writing professor. She is a Pushcart nominee, has been a SAFTA and BAC resident, and her various genres of work are featured or forthcoming in Barely South, Write or Die, Phoebe Literature, The Texas Review, Milk Press, Beaver Magazine, Across the Margins, Electric Literature, Queerlings, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere.