6.13 / Queer Two

Five Poems

items will have shifted

my eardrums pop
whilst my solar
plexus aches
w/emergency
situations.      i am chewing
tobacco + finding all
these dead pigeons
in yr travel-
sized dead pigeon
carrying case.
the flight attendant
squiggles at us-
but you are too busy
trying to make me feel
boring. eh, anyway,
we’re both such prudes-
               something, something,
               something, das kapital!
look–here i am, my stiff
upper lip barely moistened
over these pilots accidentally
on the intercom,
debating whether or not
they should force
the wings to go counter-
clockwise or left to right.


@the loudest waiting room ever in the history of the world

the taffeta was on
inside out + my self-
esteem is so lowbrow.

we’re all easily aroused
by broken glass sea-
gulls in dead bottles.

some fixing to hearken
back to the instrumental,
nevermind the woodland

creatures +/or animalzzzz.
or, if under great duress-
take my pulse to prove

you’re virgin + yonder-
shape again, that we’re just
here to further conflate

healthiness w/happiness,
honeystick w/horrifically
there being such a thing
as too fashionably late.


w/you, every night is ‘80s night

+ the morning after,
we are out of coffee,
but still sporting
the occasional nice
+ lilac-like feature.
a mixed tape of that whale
who can only sing at 51.75 Hz
is causing me to go
practically goth.
here is some eyeliner
along w/more pet
rocks for you to name.
o, please stop
asking if i am fairy
or faux-ovaried-
i don’t want us
to start getting all
socioeconomical at a time
that could be as good as this.


radioactive housewives

after work, you get cinema-mad
          + start novice waltzing

under the chandeliered sky.
          we make a blackbeauty around

a whacked out-of-orbit jupiter.
          i want to grow yr clone

some sideburns before the century
          smashes to or fro. this headache

might rally under the weight of bomb
          drills, but, we’re not hepcats,

you are still johnnygirl: pre-genius, post-
          warhero + i am wanting to time

capsule this atomically-correct version
          of our neato! domesticbliss.


i am betting on the horses, you are betting on the hounds

opening day at the race tracks situated
behind the warzone, so everyone is under
the influence+ queering

in polka dots- (take my bookie, please!)
such slattern, but it’s still not as good
as the time i could be having in

my head. dollstain on the hotel
barstyle carpet-fetch me an ice bucket
+ my cellophane mask. (mala nostra,

everybody!) you are preening + droning
in the background (fizzy tizzy in a cup,
                    if you love her, look her up-).

some folk, they’ve come to consider this a minus-
me, i’m just happy that saxophonist
from oakwood finally fell off the wagon again.


Daniela Olszewska is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Citizen J (Artifice Books, forthcoming) and cloudfang : : cakedirt (Horse Less Press, forthcoming). She sits on Switchback Books' Board of Directors and serves as Associate Poetry Editor of H_NGM_N. Daniela is pursuing her MFA at the University of Alabama, where she teaches creative writing in conjunction with The Alabama Prison Arts & Education Project.