Poetry Editor Abby LaForest on today’s Poem: Lizzy Ke Polishan’s “This Poem is Melting in the Sun” welcomes us to appreciate the transience of our lives without the need for anxiety or rigid configurations. Polishan’s language is fluid and inviting, dripping into readers’ mouths and leaving them with sun-soaked reminders of our own temporality. After all, were we not put on this earth to enjoy what’s around us?

This Poem is Melting in the Sun

Things become other things.
A cone of strawberry ice cream becomes the meaning of life. So lovely you could lick it. So pink you could know how it is before you know how it is.
A dog becomes a dog with a cone. A fish, a flash in a wave. A wave, a pair of lovers, parking in the park’s parking lot.
What is is not for very long. It's okay. Let it happen.
Here is the ice cream, here is the last bite, here is the ridged cardboard ring.
You can carry it around a little longer before you light it with your lighter, watch it turn back to light.
Here is your voice. Here is the last line. Here are a few more words.

Lizzy Ke Polishan is a poet and the author of the poetry collection A Little Book of Blooms (2020). Her recent poems appear in Gulf Coast, Gigantic Sequins, The Banshee, The Penn Review, and Dappled Things, among many others. She is a poetry reader for Psaltery & Lyre, and a Guest Editor at Palette. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband. You can find more of her work on her website, https://www.lizzykepolishan.com or on Instagram: @dizzymiss.lizzy.

You can support the writer by sending a tip via Paypal to elizabeth.polishan@gmail.com.