EILEEN RUSH
UNDER “ENTOMOPHILIA”
After The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices
The last pharaoh, they say, filled a gourd
with bees and held it against herself
and if this is so (evidence suggests no)
but if it is so
the worst job in the palace
must have been Royal Vibrator Maker.
Finding in the pharaoh’s nightstand a dead husk,
you’d hustle the gourd-dryer
and the apiary—
imagine the incensed honey-makers
losing their buzziest stock—the gourd’s incision—
the excavation with a long-handled spoon
—bees individually selected
for their anger—
if it is so
how do you even fill a gourd with bees?
Poured down a funnel—plucked by their wings—
lured by sweetness inside—Or, you
kidnap the queen.
If it is only another lie
told about a woman to make her a whore-monster
insatiable consort to be usurped—Octavian’s eyes
on her sex—his hands around her son’s throat—
I can still hear in this lie the hum
of the dying queen in the well
of a gourd’s dark belly,
the one with a goddess’s face
who sings even through history’s quiet veil.
Hail, Cleopatra, if this life offered you any pleasure
I hope you took it and took it and took it
the music of your voice rotating in its socket like a wing
above the constant, low drone of the day.
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*** ** ***
MARRIAGE IN THE FACE OF IMPENDING DISASTER
J. — We may lose our grip on the moon,
our coastal cities, our desire
for ice. The last frog may peep
in our decades together; the last lioness
may make her last footprint
in the last mud.
In my favorite nightmare, the end
comes for us as a giant wave.
I wake in the night
sweating after a wall of water
becomes my horizon, inevitable;
and you, raised a few blocks
from the ocean, dream of the tornadoes
that I have seen,
pinging between the mountains like pinballs
in a machine
(and even now, when they test the tornado sirens,
the coyotes sing).
Once a therapist said,
“There are two options
for every relationship:
You’ll either break up
or you’ll stay together
until one of you dies.”
I give “I will” without the why;
and still I choose you, my home,
a force spinning forward,
hope a bird singing in the corners of our rooms
in this fight, the last fight, of our lives.
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*** ** ***
UNDER “SPECTROPHILIA”
After The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices
1. Ghostbusters
There’s that blowjob in Ghostbusters
where Dan Aykroyd’s belt undoes itself,
then the button on his khakis pops, the zipper
unfurls and his mouth opens in shock, eyes cross
and roll back into his head — defending it, Aykroyd said,
“I have a friend who had three women
visit him in a haunted house in Louisiana,
and it was one of the greatest nights of his life.”
And I picture this “friend” in some gothic
tear-down, a spectre-riddled bordello,
and wonder: are foursomes with ghosts
as boring as orgies with bodies — always
someone lingering on the edge, like a game
of double-dutch, wondering where
they should jump in? Are even the dead
forced to diddle themselves and wait?
2. The Annunciation
God is the mouth of Gabriel in her ear.
God is the holy dove breaking
through an arch of flying babies.
She inhales the spirit like a lily’s fragrance,
heavy and immaculate. In Murillo’s,
she crosses her hands over her heart.
There is a basket of folded laundry
at her knee. In Da Vinci’s, I can’t read her face,
but a book is open on the lectern.
She seems at peace, one hand raised
as if to ask if the archangel would like a cup of tea.
I like that her knees are open, her ankles uncrossed.
Mary is manspreading. The best Annunciation
is Simone Martini’s in the Uffizi:
a 1333 gold on gold confection
where Mary pulls away from the kneeling angel
and familiar lily spray. Her lip is curled,
as though the angel stinks,
as though she wants to say,
“God wants to do what, now? To me?”
“The Lord is with you,” he repeats. “And when I say
‘with you’ I mean . . .”
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*** ** ***
UNDER “TRIPSOPHILIA”
After The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices
For years, at work in the mall,
I curved my hands up
a customer’s forearm,
scooped around her elbow
and pulled, as on a rope,
down the muscles leading
to her palm. Pressure applied
To the mount-of-venus,
which lies at the base of the thumb,
Don’t make love, I was told
when being trained for the job,
my ministrations too light.
There’s nothing worse
than a limp massage.
She grabbed me hard. Fuck it.
Pinching, firmly, you could watch
your customer’s shoulders drop.
I’d stand there pinching,
my mouth spinning, weaving sensuous
ingredients like a weird sister
above a cauldron:
orange blossom honey,
bladderwrack, and
Queen of Hungary water.
Hen’s teeth, horse toes,
and fern seeds. Green-tinted sugar,
lemon, salt; I performed
an “arm treat” and then a “face treat”
with my hands sliding in prayer position
across the bridge of a woman’s nose.
“This feels so good,” she purred.
“I could just take you home with me.”
“Yes,” I said. “I could sleep under your bed.”
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*** ** ***
BUYING LIPSTICK FOR ZIPPORAH
“I’m basically a volunteer,” says the Sephos at the counter
crowned in the latest magic blond: homebrewed highlights in his tidy pomp.
Nametag: Matte. More cheek than chic, “Will work for food and lipstick.” He has trompe
l’oeil contours, claims his paychecks dissolve into aerosol and powder.
Mine, too. I drown from aisle to aisle in this year’s Pantone color
and touch as much as possible, swab my lips with every cru classé: Noir
cream liners; slim doefooted glosses in cabernet, and fleurie beaujolais.
I look for Blocked Heart, the signature shade of Zipporah the flint-cutter
who circumcised her son to save her man. Though the story’s unclear, now,
If she sacrificed her own “Understanding.” (Clit?) Translation’s detritus:
is she named “bird” or “beauty”?; God’s wrath at the inn in Exodus;
“Just once” — once! — “in her whole married life” she spit on godliness.
Matte says, “She did what she had to do. Her man was up to his waist in snake, child.”
I pay, Blood on my mouth for my bridegroom; my teeth smudged dark with smile.
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EILEEN RUSH
Eileen Rush is a queer Appalachian poet, writer, and narrative designer living in Lexington, KY. She has worked as a journalist, grant writer, social media marketer, and soap seller. All of these jobs have influenced her writing, but some made her feel and smell better than others. She earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Florida. Her work can be found in Pleiades, The Journal, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
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A Dozen Nothing 