Tulips lift toward the sun
not as lips parting,
but cycloptic eyes, self-blinding
to defy dozens of faces
that peer directly inside,

expecting the return of some
preened reflection – a smiling
twin, mouth open to say some-
thing of how it feels

to kiss one’s self in the mirror,
then gossip about the licorice
on your breath, your aptitude
for culling unsaid words with anisette.

Tulips pull toward one another,
as halves conjoined by funhouse glass –
contracted lungs that cannot distend. 
Their swallowed tongues trigger reflex, 
taming two pulses in one shared breath.

Jessica Furtado is a poet, photographer, & owner of the popular Etsy shop All You Need is Pug, whose products have been featured in Fortune, Daily Mail, InTouch Magazine, FYI Pets, & Cesar’s Way, and whose shop was noted as an Etsy Featured Seller. Her work has previously been published under the pseudonym JJ Lynne, with photography and micro-poem collages appearing in CALYX, Muzzle, PANK, and The Brooklyn Quarterly. Her writing can be found in apt, Hobart, A Narrow Fellow, Rust + Moth, Spry, and Stirring, among others. Jessica is co-editor of poetry for the literary journal Paper Nautilus and works by day as an Early Childhood Literacy Librarian. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two rambunctious rescue dogs.