If my lips are zipped—if I keep our delicious and contagious secret
—if I am amnesiac or too hungover to remember your mouth 

on mine—if I forget the imprint of your body indelibly stamped—
if I search for you, call for you, lover, stranger, alien—if I offer up 

gratitude to the air—if I rob you of your signals and energy (are you 
battery-powered?)—if we fuck again and again all scorching night—

if we lock our power up to prevent a meltdown—if we twine ourselves 
together like an interrobang—if we cross the imperial sea holding hands 

or recycle our bodies into danger zones—if we do not yield—if I let you 
come deep inside me (finally)—if we buy more time—if your body is a 

snow-covered mountain—if your body is an emergency—if you sing 
Karaoke (I will Survive? The Boxer?) under the stage lights at Tokyo Rose—

if our bodies become facsimiles or ghosts of themselves, like melted 
snow or animal tracks—if you leave me—I need to say this, so listen: 

if you go, do it quickly—the way a rabbit darts into the brush  

emoji poem by Traci Brimhall / ‘translation’ by Erika Meitner