Kelly Magee, "extinction behavior: wine"
A selection from Issue 27 | Fall 2024
Hi friends,
Got a couple of items to share with you today. First, I hope you have enjoyed our running guest post series, which features insight into the creative lives of our past contributors and others.
My goal is to keep this series running into the foreseeable future, so if you have an idea for a guest post, I’d love to hear about it! I’ve created a quick Google form to fill out. There are options for some different types of posts, including self-narrative, essay, interview, lit mag profile, and book review. If you have an idea for something not listed, please add it in the “Other” section.
(If we’ve already communicated about a guest post idea, you don’t need to fill out the form. I’m looking forward to what you come up with! However, if you wrote a guest post already and are up for another go ’round, please do fill out the form and send another post idea.)
Of course, there’s also a new issue to mention, and it’s available to view here. A PDF download is available to our paid Substack subscribers, but you may download the PDF without subscribing at the WRJ Shop page. Either option is a great way to support what we do here.
Lastly, a quick reminder that my notebook/art collaborative collection If We is available to download as well. Thanks to everyone who have checked it out already. See download options here.
And onto the main event for today: a great poem from our Fall issue. I’d say it’s an appropriate selection for grape-harvesting season.
Kamakshi Lekshmanan, “Light”
Kelly Magee
extinction behavior: wine
what’s left of wine gives
boiled raisin, maraschino
sickness, grapefruit pudding,
honied wildfire. grape
that plays cloy and cotton
on the tongue. reluctant prune
with sugar cube. letch
in cerulean corvette.
this last dying indulgence
refuses to forgive the lifetimes
I spent lost in guzzle,
overflowing and dozy
in the amnesiac ambrosia
of dumb, drunken
abundance. I’m sorry.
the swollen oceans
haunt me. they can’t keep themselves
from forbidden elixir either.
god, how the melt
must’ve roused them.
the ravenous, angry thirst.
even now, I can’t pretend
I’d choose temperance
over a cold shot
of glacier if it promised
some witless relief. I’m weak,
and what’s left to my cup
is soldered sugar, fruited
pickle, caramelized spoil.
so drink. drink because
you’ll never finish
the last bottle. drink
for the juiced arctic and swallowed
shore. for the exhausted
soil, and exhausted growers,
and exhausted, tender
apologies. for the
fermentation of future.
for the final grapes, frantically
sweetening in the sun.
~
Kelly Magee is the author of the story collections Body Language and The Neighborhood, as well as several collaborative books of poetry and prose. Her work has appeared in Granta, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Booth, Kenyon Review, and others. She teaches creative writing and queer studies at Western Washington University.
Subscribe for free / Paid subscription includes editorial feedback for 1 poem per month (and more)!
