the lime was stuck in your glass
that first hot day of spring even
though functionally it was not
working, this lime, with its exposed
pulp, rugged rind, translucent insides,
a facsimile for the way you were speak-
ing, sucking down your gin and bubbly as
the fruit floated stagnant in the
middle of your liquids, acquainted
with borders in the way limes tend
to be, always getting their skin sliced,
bodies piled into plastic containers,
carcasses dumped into the same four
cocktail recipes, peering out half-alive
through bar glasses that are just scratched
enough to shroud every possibility
from view, not enough that those
unknowing might think anything
except huh, the world looks a bit
fuzzy, and you were looking out
just the same trying to escape an
enclosure as subtle as that of your tonic
talking about wanting a life that allows
you to move freely, saying things like
i’m not like you, when it was so obvious
to me that the citrus in your cup with its
sour sacs and drowning flesh wanted
the same, to burst out
from its vessel and yell,
I am a FRUIT.
***
Favorite Drink: Extra dirty vodka martini
***
Sofie Wise lives in Brooklyn. Her work is published / forthcoming in Hobart, Words & Sports, and Handwritten & Co.
***
image: Claire C. Wood
Rejection Letters 