Virginia Konchan: The Grammar of Sex
Ex Machina
The problems of suffering and desire
are not about forbearance or delayed
gratification. It’s about identifying
the one hurdle you’ve identified as
insurmountable, then mounting it.
Ta Da. Voila. So there. With you,
anything seemed possible. What do
you mean, I don’t have to put my
toiletries in travel-size containers?
Do you surmount the jurisdiction
of airport security, too? So long.
Thanks for the retirement luncheon,
the gold watch you set ticking like a
bat out of hell, when what I really
wanted was a diamond tennis bracelet,
Pay-Per-View, and a chubby child
to call my own. The wicked prosper.
Everyone is a tourist, sometimes.
I make up for deceit in innovation,
in being willing to sacrifice a lung.
Every subject needs its object: mine,
a bell so heavy it cannot be rung.
I Love Hamburgers
As Thich Nhat Hanh said, you should not say
I love hamburgers, as love is a sacred word
that should be reserved for the flesh, or soul.
I am afraid of Virginia Woolf, as I discovered
what black magic can do. Can’t stop won’t stop.
Noah’s Ark, as we know, was built for two.
I know I’m forgetting something, such as
a good-night kiss, which I cannot render
as it would irreparably fuck up my lipstick.
I can no longer afford my hovercraft, now
that the sale of diesel has skyrocketed again.
Yes, Fräulein, give me another one of your
pietistic platitudes about sex and grammar
and the grammar of sex. Give me the life
wisdom of bean counters who ascribe genius
to photosynthesis in the Darkest Age.
O, to be a diva, so fucking special that
not a single person could ever forget
the tread of your footstep on their face.
You want to know the secret to victory?
Dance like no one is watching, even though
everyone is watching. Tell me: is it so bad
to desire desire in perpetuity? And here’s
God again. Stuck in the deep web with you.
Virginia Konchan is the author of a collection of poetry, The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon, 2018), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017), and two chapbooks, including That Tree is Mine (dancing girl press, 2017). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, and Best New Poets.
