Lindsey Royce

FEVER ME

I didn’t want you wholesome, socially-

sanctioned, an appropriate

armpiece, proper guy in tails atop

a wedding cake. I wanted you to consume

me, take me whole in your bare hands,

fever me like water that purifies—

and then disappears. But death’s hands

polished our dirge, left it

shiny as a chorus of top hats,

and no number of vodka martinis

can convince me such trickery ever spares the rabbit.

Today, the mist is thick, and I wander inside

to find comfort in disappearance.

There, I can imagine I’m dead with you,

sealed in that envelope to nowhere,

spirit-empty, with no legible address.

Lindsey Royce's poems have appeared in periodicals and anthologies, including the Aeolian Harp #8, #7, and #5 anthologies; Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts (periodicals and anthologies); The Hampton-Sydney Review; The New York Quarterly; Poet Lore; and The Washington Square Review. Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Royce's first poetry collection, Bare Hands, was published by Turning Point in September of 2016, and her second collection, Play Me a Revolution, published by Press 53 in September of 2019, won second place for poetry in the 2020 Independent Publishers Book Awards. Her third collection, The Book of John, is under contract at Press 53. Full Profile