3 Champagnes Deep at a Wedding Reception

Kentucky fit like a thrift store sweater,
itchy against my skin, pooling at the wrists.
My eyes always searching for the fire exit,
the soil too dry for my tender seeds.

But I spent that first week with you
lapping up sweet lake air,
amazed at how different Minnesota tasted.

Your mom gave me a necklace,
a golden ring encircling a tree,
and I felt my roots grasp the ground,
growing toward you.

Your dad placed a drunken hand
on my shoulder and said he would only drink
Kentucky bourbon and that you and I
should move to Uptown.

I found a place curved into your collarbone
that I knew would fit smooth against my cheek.
I bought it without trying it on.

I open your bathroom cabinet and find
my mascara right where
I left it.

In a rush down the stairs,
my hand scraped the wooden railing and
I took a piece of you back, buried in my thumb.

The more I sit in airports, the less
it feels like coming home
and more like biding time.

My life is a series of intertwined highways pin-pricked across a map,
memories compressed in a small space between my fingers.
This longing is not to scale.

I find a server carrying another tray of champagne,
and wonder if my bank account could handle another plane ticket.

I cried seeing you in a tux.

By Kristian Porter

Biography:

Kristian Porter is a 23-year-old writer who just moved to Minneapolis from Cincinnati and is still adjusting. By day, she works as a copywriter for a marketing agency. By night, she writes poems about distance, alcohol, and all the places that feel like home. When she’s not writing, she’s probably watching cooking shows with her three cats or wandering aimlessly around a bookstore. She has been previously published by Words Dance Publishing and is currently working on her first poetry collection.