by Gabrielle Hogan
i’m a man of romance.
give me a bear,
i will split it in two
& give you the better half,
the half with the teeth & the heart
with all its ventricles & coils.
that’s how much i like you.
look at you.
upturned car in the desert, smoke-
leaked, tarmac-hot.
engine neutered,
tires fattened by heat.
let’s make fat wrecks of each other,
let’s eat fat gobs of cream.
i’m a fat gob of cream.
sex is constantly building
a better cockroach,
trailing hisses through the bed on its way
to mate with our big toes.
in the future-perfect world,
roaches will evolve to an
opulent pink, rose-gold
antennae with aching,
gelatin backsides—ugh, c’mon,
baby girl, let’s fuck
on this mound of bison skulls.
the wolf that sits in my navel
is sad & needs distraction.
Gabrielle Grace Hogan is a poet from St. Louis, Missouri, currently living in Austin, Texas, as she pursues her MFA with the New Writers Project from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets, Sonora Review, Nashville Review, Kissing Dynamite, Passages North, and others. She is the poetry editor for Bat City Review and coeditor of You Flower / You Feast, a forthcoming anthology of poetry and prose inspired by Harry Styles. Her social media and projects can be found on her website, gabriellegracehogan.com.