Electrogenic I had been told
to drown as fish is to be full-up
with oxygen, to become
buoyant with oxygen, to bloat
and expand like overstretched balloon,
like blobfish
so unjustly named.
poetry
Kai Pretto
Kai Pretto is a genderqueer & neurodivergent emerging poet whose poetry vacillates between the deeply surreal and the uncomfortably grounded.
MA, United States
Selected work (3 publications)
Last Poem for JamesIn an old knapsack I found
the first polaroid—you, shirtless with poetry scrawled
across your rib cage; me, smiling
with jasmine and daisies in my hair.
This is when we climbed trees and rode bicycles
and you juggled in the park.
poetry
Coming Home
The cemetery is overwhelmed
by crickets, thousands of them clutched
to tombstones
with names not our ancestors.
We tiptoe as we pass, sure their mouths will maw open
and consume us whole, swarm of wings
and teeth and vulnerable flesh.
poetry