after reading Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
In the Garden of Evil I’m gonna be the greatest classic suit of blue smoke
gobs of maraschino syrup Roaring 20s pomade channel Daisy Buchanan &
soil a wealthy man’s shirts sugar cube rosin grenadine god spritzer
all the hotels in Vegas must have bibles prayers hemmed in the marriage licenses
fuck romantic ideologies: greats only being greats if they were in pain inebriated
I barely had half a glass of wine once & left the party wanting to kiss the entire room
brass flare melting the big band into a mirror a kind of Saturday night prayer
o, holy spirit of iced cristal health class struck the fear of god in me
both with drinking & sex forgive me & the sins my friends have made
in the swimming pool did Eve not come to warn you you can’t take me anywhere
unless anywhere is a church a Parisian back patio confession booth
in the record store atop Sinatra’s grave if sin is not synonymous with leather
then what really is miraculous I cannot bear to be filthy with pulp
sequined with redemption vinyl is coming back in fashion & I guess so too is god
glitter of catholic guilt my vices are silver exuberances tourniquets of a silk tie
I un-ribbon like snakes between a raucous jaw whistle before seven years of bad luck
the first woman a man wrote a song about built a tolerance to cyanide
the apple cannot force me to do anything but sing
Adrienne Novy is a Jewish and neurodivergent artist with a rare genetic disorder. She is a nominee for Bettering American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and is a 2020 graduate from Hamline University’s Creative Writing program. She is the author of Crowd Surfing With God (Half Mystic Press, 2018) and the mini-chapbooks, We Have Each Other’s Flowers (Zines + Things, 2020) and Pull (Ginger Bug Press, 2020). Her most recent work can be found in Passages North and “You Flower/ You Feast: An Anthology of Prose, Poems, & Plays inspired by Harry Styles”. She lives in the Midwest & has a cat named Laurie.
