Paradise
by Emelie Griffin

​​You don’t know whether the current flows
along with the direction of the planet’s turning
or in opposition. I turn my camera vertical
to take in the far edge of the pink lake.
I’ve seen lakes flushed from bacteria,
rosy from algae, and salty as eyelids.
You said the opened body you saw into
shocked you with its rich pink.
More bubblegum than I would think,
more luminous, as if the white paint
had spilled into the red.
Where you expected death
to be ascetic, you found noise, glow,
insistent echo. Like my voice voyaging
toward you through stupor.
You kept your skin zipped up all the way
to California. Maybe your spirit
will find its next environment
more hospitable. I don’t know
whether love flows in agreement
with the cosmic machinery or in defiance
but this question is immaterial for you,
who cannot stand to watch a bloom open,
not even in California,
where there will be no refusing the sun.

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​Emelie Griffin lives in Texas, where she is a doctoral student at the University of Houston. She serves as Online Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast.

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Winter 2019
"The Sun As She Experiences It" by Emelie Griffin