John Denver by Rachel Bruce

Tides gush over the promise of evening, interrupted only by giddy teens

and a chorus of stars. Your thumb on my knee feels infinite. 

Dinners are gentle affairs. I watch the bats follow us home, 

swig enough wine from the bottle to bother my head in the morning, 

cured by our Frankenstein creation of rice, egg, and beans.

This time is all salty goodness. I eat the chip you have covered in ketchup, 

you ask me to play with you in the waves, 

tipping me from my surfboard with a boyish smile. 

Everything about you is joyful: 

the way you sing John Denver and lick chocolate from your fingers, 

your talent for accents. My seduction has never been so complete. 

The world is new and you are its maker.   

Our future melts before me like sea foam;  

there’s sand in my toes even now. 

Rachel Bruce (she/her) is a poet based in South London. She studied English Literature at the University of Warwick and has been writing since a young age. Her work has appeared in The Telegraph, Propel Magazine, Mslexia, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Daily Drunk, and Atrium, among others.