#30

Our conversation always takes a turn toward garnish,
toward thick lipstick gum flapping and other dressings-
up. It’s seductive to confuse lingerie with the function of
underwear, you and me. So we recite fancy prayers from
the refined ancients, so you, beholder of beauty, can
ignore me, the septic nemesis in the talks. Adorers
adorn the adored to keep dynamics in check, keep
hierarchies arching across every innuendo lobbed
about. Plain as the unicorn horn on your face, some
things are mythic in perfection, others prolific in
defecation. We can’t discuss that without some
decoration, some cheap glaze.

# # #

Christopher Grosso is the author of the novels Godfat’s Door, Mauled, and Mouth to God’s Ear, all published by imprints of Crossroad Press. His full-length play, Odor of Sanctity, is published by Monologue Bank. His collection of poems, Philadelphia Swank, won the Thirty West Publishing 2017 Chapbook Competition and was released that same year. He earned and MFA from Brooklyn College and an MA from Cabrini University. He lives outside of Philadelphia.

Photo: yns plt