By Hollie Dugas
Let’s get you some paper, you can paint
me organless if that’s what turns you on.
Wear my small intestines around
your neck like a medal. I’ll follow
you through streets, a weeping wound
in your flesh, watching you ingest
your feelings. They say
you’re a monster. But don’t let it
get you down; you are free, cut off
from convention, simple and wild,
led by desire, to consume the pith
of the living, make art, dance.
Besides, would you rather be one
of them, having to eat up
all your vegetables? Come, let’s finish
our lives together. It doesn’t matter
how dead you get; I am indebted
to you now—a man who has come
back out of love. I’ll reach my hand
into those sticky lungs, fish out
any ache you have. Take my hand
and whirl me for a spin,
I’ll land in your arms every time.
me organless if that’s what turns you on.
Wear my small intestines around
your neck like a medal. I’ll follow
you through streets, a weeping wound
in your flesh, watching you ingest
your feelings. They say
you’re a monster. But don’t let it
get you down; you are free, cut off
from convention, simple and wild,
led by desire, to consume the pith
of the living, make art, dance.
Besides, would you rather be one
of them, having to eat up
all your vegetables? Come, let’s finish
our lives together. It doesn’t matter
how dead you get; I am indebted
to you now—a man who has come
back out of love. I’ll reach my hand
into those sticky lungs, fish out
any ache you have. Take my hand
and whirl me for a spin,
I’ll land in your arms every time.
Hollie Dugas lives in New Mexico. Her work has been included in Barrow Street, Reed Magazine, Qu, Redivider, Porter House Review, EPOCH, Salamander, Poet Lore, The Louisville Review, The Penn Review, Breakwater Review, Third Coast, RHINO, Sixth Finch, Gordon Square Review, Phoebe, Broad River Review, and Louisiana Literature. Additionally, “A Woman’s Confession #5,162” was selected as the winner of Western Humanities Review Mountain West Writers’ Contest (2017). Hollie has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets. Most recently, her poem was selected as winner of the 22nd Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize at CALYX, in addition to, the 2022 Heartwood Poetry Prize. She was also a finalist in the Atlanta Review’s 2022 International Poetry Contest.
