Domestic Disturbance
Douse tongue in scalding herbal tea. Breach.
Yellow onions un-paper themselves. I lob
a soft body into the stew pot.
Through watery eyes, this is such a little pretty
little nuthouse. Spin through the empty red
pistachio shells, black walnuts, candied pecans,
sugared almond slivers inserted underneath fingernails
until my knees buckle into a plié. Oh pantaloon-atic!
Oh washboard! Oh breastbone beneath which fungal
fruiting bodies breed. Into the stew pot, the butternut
squash twitching as if against an electric fence. The angry red
welts in my wrist. The bloodsuckers drained
my heirloom tomatoes. The husks in my drawers;
the crotch panel stained with a soupcon of beef broth.
Oh soupcon! I signed the contract! I signed on the dotted line
like cutting coupons, like julienned beets, like a wickerwork
basket of battered pointe shoes. A constellation of tiny blood stains
against pink sateen backdrop, but now I have bare feet.
Glass splinters into the stew pot, pantiliners into the stew pot,
antifungal cream, delousing powder, bleach.
Empty the stew pot into the laundry machine;
turn on the spin cycle. Sing a little pretty ditty
about a fruitcake with gangrene. Oh heaving bear claw!
Oh raw crescent roll! It’s bedroom time, my dearies.
My doll-hole is drilled to sweet dimensions.
My blow-hole is spouting cream. I’m a little teapot;
hear me scream. My hard-bodied manikin hovers above
my scene; such a tease before it crashes.
Torpedo torso splintering. Subdermal planting.
Fiberglass shards in my dumpling filling.
Spiracular
Nobody in these parts will be grossed out if I get a little blubbery.
That’s because I’ve lived inside a sperm whale for going on three weeks.
Don’t ask me how I ended up here; it just kind of evolved,
but I don’t mean that spiritually. I’m not Jonah-like,
Biblical, or even angelic.
I’m more of a baked goods lover.
A jelly donut was my roommate
& last week we got hitched.
I wear her around my finger so she doesn’t float away.
She lets me jiggle my pinkie around in her jelly.
She lets me call her my little puff pastry with benefits.
Our wedding feast was course after course
of krill washed down with krill in silver goblets.
My wife has a very small mouth,
but she’ll drink a mini chocolate éclair under the table
& put most baby stingrays to shame.
We have no official drinking age inside the whale,
but we do have a canopy bed with waterproof sheets.
Let’s just say they were stained with sweet, sticky streaks that night.
Let’s just say we were so naughty the whale’s eyes bulged out.
We don’t use the word blowhole
when we talk dirty. We say things like spume of black raspberry
meets saltwater spew bejeweled with ambergris.
Soon my wife will be out of jelly.
We’re very gender fluid. After all,
a jelly donut is neither male nor female,
even though I call it a she. As for me,
I’d like to call myself a shemale pomosexual, but I’d be lying
if I said that shemale part didn’t come right out of a porno magazine.
Juliet Cook is the author of numerous quirky chapbooks, most recently including MONDO CRAMPO (coming soon from the dusie kollektiv 3) and PINK LEOTARD & SHOCK COLLAR (coming soon from Spooky Girlfriend Press). Her first full-length poetry collection, ‘Horrific Confection’ was recently published by BlazeVOX.