This REFUSAL poem was originally accepted by Frontier Poetry but was withdrawn by the author in protest.

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When I kissed you in the car after my training shift it felt like being born
and when you kissed me in the alley the night you walked me back to my apartment

you said you never kissed anyone in Chicken Alley before and I said I have but not like this
and our bodies filled up like balloons and the concrete gave out beneath our feet

and I didn’t know my hands could want things like this and when I kissed you
in the parking lot the streetlights flickered above our heads, the moon was a pearl

and the people spilled into the street as the bars closed down and for a moment
I understood math and suddenly I don’t want to write poems about death anymore—I want to live

I want to write poems about June and how the sun remakes the shapes of our bodies
and the taste of sweat mixed with tomato juice and our hands dirt-stained and reaching

and our hands and our hands and how it feels to be born and how it feels to be swallowed
and choosing to love because that’s all we know how to do before the August heat destroys us.