sonnet for perusing the cereal aisle with your lover (you need not mourn in advance, but it will happen anyway)
you rush past me with the shopping cart and
it wrenches in my gut: i will lose you
someday, drowned in fire or atop white sheets—
what a treacherous thing to know the end
before even seeing the in between
grief rules over life with a velvet fist
in memorium of a future life
if a great thing comes without aftershocks
then it was not meant for me; i know this
because grief still makes the love worth living
so while you grab the cheerios, i will
take a breath and grip the handle and think
we have lived a million funerals before
close the coffin, love, we are not dead yet
Everix Machan (he/him) is a queer, transgender, and autistic undergraduate poet from Wisconsin. His poetry is published or forthcoming in The Gentian, The Branches, ONE ART, Gyroscope Review, and The Rebis, among others. When not writing, he is often researching, reading, and finding excuses to perform.
