Karyna McGlynn

I TRISECTED THE BULL’S BLADDER IN THE LAVENDER

it was full of etchings & old invitations

rusted it was a paisley inlet I couldn’t

put my finger on the alchemy of what

I was doing despite the spiritualists of

1912 who threw me an EZE castrator

I saw their oily fingers soldered inside

kidskin and didn’t believe them a lick

but a man of god said strips of rubber

around my breasts would do the trick

if tied off correctly he lifted my dress

& left cupping glasses on my buttocks

where he touched me his talk was thin

as piano wire he showed me his vials

of salve & doused me with toilet water

turned vinegar in what once was a bed

of lavender I marked myself with bull

urine though the man of god insisted

I’d gone straight down now that I was

sunk as an orange blossom billet when

the bull lowed with sweat in my grip

SOMEBODY SHOOK ME: WAKE UP IT’S RAINING OIL

or it looks like oil sheeting down the window patience I don’t think it has a smell

& it’s stained the glass gray I’m afraid you must come downstairs to see be careful

every step’s turned on flesh & the handrail’s slathered in apricot jelly baby if only we

bought you the plastic pool or had a birdbath or an old washbin now who will ever

believe we struck it or were stricken o I’m sorry I forgot to pay the electricity can I

make you some fried eggs? just pretend they’re not raw o my patience is starting to

melt you see? I started to open the window somebody shook & shook me I stuck

my tongue out laid it along the sill she said you’ll kill us that’s not your oil to steal

I said it’s ink mama not oil she said you’ll kill yourself that’s not your ink to steal