I wasn’t trying to steal you from your girlfriend
after Keetje Kuipers
except I was, and she wasn’t your girlfriend
but your partner, even though everyone hated
that word in the ’90s——we said lover,
we said——God, I want to dance with you
both. I kissed a rose in front of you, kissed
a man for sport. You kissed my wrist. I kissed
your neck after you taught me to always request
Pinot Grigio as if we could order lust
by the glass. At the Century Ballroom
with your hand under my skirt, you said we were
remarkable, said we could be almost be mistaken
for sisters, for lovers, for a family who danced
together. And what I craved was touch,
so when you kept buying me Sex
on the Beach, I didn’t say no. And when I drank
more than I should, you twirled me around,
into the women’s room, where I let you
run your fingers along my thong like a waltz,
let you do what you needed to and maybe we knew
we couldn’t let it go any further. Maybe we did.
Still, when we sat beneath that vintage Porto
Ramos-Pinto poster where a winking Cupid
handing two women a bottle of champagne,
you said, Look, they’re two women. And I knew
femininity was my drag, and it was then I knew
beauty. It was then I knew power.
To the woman who flirted with my partner who flirted with her⸺
For a long time, I thought there was only so much
love, so much lust, just enough to scrape by. The heart
he drew on your car. The way he called you Beautiful.
I kind of wanted that for me. Because I kind of understood,
how someone could be hungry for you. For a long time,
I thought I should be jealous. But a friend taught me
the word compersion——your lover finding happiness
in another. Forget karma. What if we were meant to love
more, not less? I’m not saying I’m right. But even if you
both were villains in my story, I kind of love how
for a moment, you two were happy. And maybe the villain
is a world that says we must only love one. Look around,
there’s a garden overflowing with wildflowers,
and you’ve been asked to choose just one.
Kelli Russell Agodon is a bi/queer poet from the Pacific Northwest. Her book Accidental Devotions will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2026. Her previous collection, Dialogues with Rising Tides, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. Kelli is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press and teaches in Pacific Lutheran University’s MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. She is also the cohost of the poetry series Poems You Need with Melissa Studdard and believes she has learned a lot from Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada——No, no. That wasn’t a question.
