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Confessions of an Aging Lesbian Poet

I was a spinner for the winking eye
of any needle. A whore for fluorescence,
that retro-electromagnetic easy smile

between the legs. It’s good for a while.
You’re more a skeptic. Red for love, pink
for thank you; which color blooms dyke?

We think of poetry as a hunchbacked gardener
watering antiquities. I wanted to be thunder,
the way it shoots down the stoned freeway

mouths & later we meant lightning anyway.
Say you’re here for the stray tongue flickering
society’s décolletage. I don’t blame you.

Who cares if wisdom bumps beauty’s ass
in a neon cage? Let us write about it.
Let us wonder how Cleopatra makes it

to lusty hell not knowing the meaning of bass.
Let us wonder how to appreciate an external
heartbeat. How to love girls with shimmery

city names we’ll never visit. You want advice?
Break off the period in this sentence
& swallow it like a pill. Is it poetry

while the buzz lasts? You bet. The shame
in this death is how quick flowers follow.
As if humus appreciates our zephyranthes.

 

 

Jesse Mikhail Wesso is from the sixth largest city in Illinois, which happens to lie on its sixth largest river. He is usually counting quarters for cat food or doing favors for coffee. Occasionally poetry. Facebook.com/jmwesso