For Fistfights
 

by Shringarika Pandey

What Frank O’Hara has taught me about love
      is similar to what my refrigerator says
about cheese.

Cherish it before it disappears.
      Take it to museums.
make a sandwich (with it or for it),

let it ruin the mechanisms of your heart
      for some things are just built to transform you.

I am yours
      and I have a claim on things
you’ve chosen to hate
      whether with reason or not

      I also have a claim on things you’ve chosen to love           
which brings me the closest I have even been to my own self

I look brighter here
less ill
less damp from all the salt
      I have been pouring onto my hair

Make it lively
like sand on a beach

What Frank O’Hara has taught me about beaches
and the ocean
      is that you only go
when you’ve ruptured the land
           so much so you can only be alive in water again.

Let me hold your hips as we drown.

Shringarika Pandey is an India-based poet. On the good days, she can be found naming playlists after Richard Siken poems, organising her Google Docs folders, and making decent enough chai. Catch her and her houseplants on instagram @shringarikaa.