THESAURUS dot COM
Kassy Lee
Claret, maybe? A simple Kool-Aid rued hue. Inside, the body of someone
who hates me. Outside, a tree muscles out its raw fruits. The gentle arc of
the moon laps up the blood. A puddle of which is subject to the same forces
as the tidal ebb and flow. The bay window chafes my outer thigh as we make
love. The goldfish knows. He doesn’t grow jealous. I was charmed by sweet
kernels of corn between your gap-tooth, the boy with the Dead Sea cosmetics
booth, the ripples of a wound. Even if you believe that the horizon is a snake
with its tail on its own tongue, a kid on my Chrome browser will still be dead.
You’ll go on trying to overanalyze my texts. I’ll go on with my cellphone
camera, recording my nephew killing roaches with Raid in order to play it
back in reverse. Death happens only once, and then all is rewound. God can
make a rusty revolving chamber, like your heart. God can make a military
grade tank on a sunflower-hugged highway. That’s within his means. God
can make pies as wide as July, a silvered token for the misappreciation
of your body. He can do whatever he likes except prove that all of us are
made in his image. For some reason he can’t do the math on that one.
It’s just that, well, every cloud has a brutal body bag lining. When we are
abstract, we can be so beautiful. But, we are concrete. We are gray, draped
by the bodies of teenagers killed on their way to their grandma’s house.
Killed while thinking, Will there be any cute girls in technical college?
Just some city girls with their tight coils in the dead air of the dayroom.
TENDER GREENS
I meet the meat slicer. I meet the deli counter.
The butcher boy has his perfect speed. He might
be the half-soup, half-sandwich combo meal deal
of my dreams. I’ve been told there’re mountains
haloing the city in the distance, but where the fuck
are they when you need them? Since I’ve moved
here all I can see is the high spire poking out from
the convention center. After all, this seizing of my
heart around its blood bags is as plain as plain yogurt.
A monogrammed dish towel in an orchard of fruit
-bearing trees, now that’d be the stuff. I start to “talk”
with God to pass the time, but after a while I spend
the nights at His place. He will at least set an alarm
for me to wake up before Him so I can get my ass
to work on time. The angle of His pulpwood scar
makes me feel like a jukebox playing, “What’s Up
Pussycat” ad nauseam in a moonlit diner. Of course,
after another while God gets bored of my fake sex
noises. He leaves the TV room shouting things like,
“My Easy Bake Oven, my silent beauty, my jealous
pizza, guacamole costs extra but only ninety-nine
cents extra. Think of all I’ve done for you!” He comes
back in after checking the crevice behind His comfy
couch for the Roku remote. I need Him more than
He needs me. I know, I know, okay. I whisper. I wave
the celadon sweet laundry softener above my head.
I read a Cosmo.com article about emotionally
unavailable deities, and I ask God if He thinks
He’s emotionally unavailable. “C’mon, girl, I’m
watching Game of Thrones,” He says. The voice
of God saying, “C’mon girl, atta girl, good girl.”
That’s what ropes me in when I think of leaving
Him and changing my Facebook profile pic for
good. I blow Him and bang my skull against His
desk in a casual rhythm. He makes a joke about
knocking the sense into me. I joke that I’d rather
have some cents instead of sense. It’s not a very
funny joke, but I’m not a very funny person
either. It’s a universal test of personal will
and devotion to be God’s small lamb and fuck-
around-girl. It leaves me wondering, Am I the
type to be told I am beautiful against the gentle
to and fro of the whipsaw? Or am I the whipsaw?
KASSY LEE is a poet and career coach, currently residing in Beijing, China. Her most recent chapbook, zombia, was published in 2014 by dancing girl press. She has read in the Bookworm Beijing International Literary Festival, and curates a bi-monthly arts and poetry night known as transmigrant flow. For more information on her work, please visit kassylee.com
