this morning
I ache
to touch
you
outside
the wind is cold and rowdy
ripping spring buds
off the trees
with a degree of wildness
that is reserved
only for the natural
between seasons
it is your name
that holds
me
the ground is littered
with wind-swept petals
all I hear is she loves me she loves me she loves me
______
I chose this poem in honor of and in conversation with Minnie Bruce because it is steeped in the love story I shared with a remarkable woman for seventeen years, one of the great loves of my life. When I first encountered their words in college, Minnie Bruce and Leslie exemplified to me a possibility of what a powerful relationship could look like. This poem speaks gently to honor that creative trust and love—amplifying each other’s personhood while also fighting for humanity. My great love and I have taken different paths, but the love we still hold for each other transcends separation, endures in a higher vessel. Like the poems in Magnified transcend the wall between life and death, in this poem and many of my poems in the world, our love lives on. —K.C.
Memento Mori by Alexa Garvoille
Fimmene, Fimmene by Jessica Rae Bergamino
Bayou La Terre by Stacey Balkun
Become, or whatever marriage is equal to is not nearly enough by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Never the Devil’s Advocate by Margaret Randall
