Poetry editor Lauren Sparks on today’s poem: Precise in both image and imagination, Eli Rahm’s playful (yet poignant) poem, “Maraschino,” captures—then frees—then eats what we often call “the perils of love;” fickle curiosites, surprising nonchalance, and, at times, monstrous appetites.

maraschino

On another Virginia roof, I’m talking about how much I love
watching the birds at play.

Levi yawns, stretches, and snatches a cardinal from the sky, her
brown feathers desperate, falling. I’m bored with this, Levi says,
stroking the bird’s throat, how rapidly it moves.

I pretend there is music, whistle like Pan, flute a nearby oak leaf. I
grab Levi’s hand and ask her to dance. She smiles, lets the bird go,
and I breathe—the sound of wings vibrating the air.

We swing and dip—she glides, I trip. Moonlight drips her body
silver. When she spins, her hand buries itself in the oak tree;
emerges grasping another cardinal—a male, this time.

I like the red ones—she says, teeth already clenching his
neck—they taste just like cherries.

Eli V. Rahm (they/them) is a queer poet from Virginia. Eli is the recipient of the 2022 Mary Roberts Rinehart Poetry Award and the 2020 Joseph A. Lohman III Award in Poetry. They have attended the Berlin Writers Workshop in Berlin, Germany, and the Juniper Writing Institute in Amherst, Massachusetts. Their work is featured or forthcoming in Bellingham Review, Barren, The Academy of American Poets, Portland Review, Feral, among others. You can find them tweeting about horror films and strange animals @dinodysphoria

If you would like to show your appreciation for the writer’s work, you can send them a tip through Venmo: @Eli-Rahm