Unabridged car banter
I am not a woman, but this thing that weeps at night
that steals your smile
at the supermarket
and hides it in the tomato aisle.
I am a ravenous beast
a warehouse of tears
stored neatly in jugs
for later indulgence,
for eternal eruption
just you wait. I like to be
squished
during sex
and not during sex.
Let me pluck
your eyebrows.
When we pass mile marker 35
I get hungry
for pickled okra
and we share the whole
jar. Look
at this finite
object of sustenance.
Look at my tongue.
Tongue of a woman?
Didn’t think so. More like
tongue of a spaceship
probing for some blue star
we identified, but it’d take us
a million years
to get to
and we’d still find ourselves
lost.
E.K. Bartlett is an Iowa-born, Paris-based writer and translator. Their work can be found in Asymptote, Fifth Wheel Press, new words {press}, Rust & Moth, Gigantic Sequins, among others. They currently run a radio show on World Radio Paris and work at an independent publishing house. Photo by Lea Volta.