[POETRY]

[04/06/26]

A Kiss, A Gun

Two Poems by Cait Danielle

Sinkhole

Between me and myself 
is a marshland I try to drink from. 

My grandmother floats—a cadaver in compost 
green, hollow as late fall. 

This is a shallow mourning: decades late, 
salt-weathered, lung bare to sky. 

Our silence is thick and godless. 
I’ve missed the chance to love her back. 

Drifting through reed, mouth open round as a stone 
in her hand, I imitate the way she does afterlife. 

We flood inward like sinkholes.  
The two of us so easily full.

Variation

I’ve been mistaking immolate for emolliate. Each syllable pulls / the lips in and out—not unlike a kiss, a gun.

Many things soften when they burn.

I was shy but followed directions well, which made for a good performer.

glissade ::: jeté ::: pas de bourrée 

At some age, you commit your first betrayal and learn guilt, you commit your first god and learn shame.

fondu from first position

I learn the constant urge to wash my feet in the sink. I find new ways to never be alone.

CAIT DANIELLE is a poet and astrologer from California. Cait's poetry explores the forms obsession can take and the small gods that are created along the way.