Gabe Montesanti is a current MFA student at Washington University in St. Louis. Her primary genre is creative nonfiction but she is also currently studying poetry with francine j. harris. She has a BA in mathematics and studio art from Kalamazoo College.


Also by Gabe Montesanti: Stomach Drag Show In Reverse

Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry: Pulsamos: Cover

November 30, 2016

Gabe Montesanti

Here Come the Boys

Red, not lace, but webs of rope, like war of tug and tug and tug and
the couch is still wet, still stuffed with bees, not silky combs, girl when
I come take off your veil, your belt, your skin so I can see you're here you're
hot, your hive, and now you're stuck to my eggs, face-down, ass up, windup, take a
joke, take it sore and silent, like debt, like spring, take a duct tape star,
make a wish, make my ribs into bars then swing, oh look, the boys, they
eat just bladderworts, bratwurst and queens, if you wrench, they feast, you yelp, they let
you go, not far, but go, to corn, to maize, go run, they'll haunt you down, you
smell like a two-headed bee in a mason jar, pickle jar, any box, any trick will do
just twinge, just tease, just take my tongue, what I mean is if bees had teeth they'd bite it.
Calm down honey, not quite, you're dry as whisky, as elbow, as drowning. You
can smoke spiracles, beeswax, waxglands, I can take you to Motown, to townsfolk, we can
go when we're done, bite down on this sucrose, on slumgum, on sperm cells, I'll do
it quick as rap, as scatter, as anything.


"Here Come the Boys" was written after reading Kiki Petrosino's Hymn for the Black Terrific. The poem is written in Terrance Hayes' Golden Shovel form, in which the italicized text down the right margin is appropriated from another source. In this case, the text I borrowed comes from President-elect Donald Trump's infamous recorded words about women. Aside from that, the poem speaks for itself.

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.