By Dani Putney
Pearls
It happens after Mamma Mia!
for the fifth time:
I place my cock in hand’s pinhole grasp,
move back and forth
as fluorescent bathroom lightbulbs
let eyes process
brown skin on brown skin—
I try to conjure D cups bursting
from filigreed lingerie,
red lipstick stains trailing down my belly,
but all that comes is Colin Firth
dancing in his wet, pearly shirt
Across the Desert
1.
Bees made their hive
above the attic window.
I asked you, Can we keep it?
If it’s not wasps, you said.
2.
When I moved in, I insisted
we alphabetize our bookshelf
by first name, not last.
I told you it was ironic that
Birthday Letters touched The Colossus.
You shrugged and walked off.
3.
I cut my ring finger.
Sitting on our toilet seat, I watched
the blood form a perfect bead.
You handed me a bandage and flashed
that Hughes smile she and I used to love.
I thought about the bees.
4.
A year ago I crossed the desert
while you stood waiting
by the Oasis of Nevada.
I jokingly thought you were my savior,
Aryan neo-Nazi. Maybe
it was her guiding me.
5.
A bee near the backdoor
startled our dogs. You swatted it
with a handful of bills
and threw away the body.
I didn’t have a chance
to ask about the hive.
6.
Sylvia, tell me,
should I leave here?
Western Mythology
For Matthew Shepard
2 by 2, hands of dirt,
they grapple my shoulders from behind.
Cowboy sweat slips into my slashes, burns,
our stenches mingle to form sarsaparilla death.
No. 1 laps blood off my ear,
carves a river across deflated chest,
whispers, You like that, queer?
His pal lifts a cigarette from dry lips,
rubs it real good into my wrist,
cackles in tune to hyena brothers, sisters
who love to devour meat like me.
2 by 2, their hands force my head
into spikes 3: mouth, cheek, eye yolk.
Face next to barbed wire,
I smell rust, taste enamel dislodged,
sliced through tongue, gums, empty sockets.
Fluid leaks from punctured sclera,
sight becomes oblivion,
hot breath crawls down my neck.
Tie him up, make it tight.
2 by 2, boots clack
against gravel, shadows enter
their pickup. The engine screeches alive,
headlights, I speak your language:
Take me to purgatory—rush, sweep,
the truck targets my wilting flesh,
I hear black.
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Dani Putney is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx, and neurodivergent writer originally from Sacramento, California. Their poems appear in outlets such as Empty Mirror, Ghost City Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Juke Joint Magazine, and trampset, while their personal essays can be found in journals such as Cold Mountain Review and Glassworks Magazine, among others. They received their MFA in Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women. While not always (physically) there, they permanently reside in the middle of the Nevada desert. Salamat sa Intersectionality is their first poetry collection.
