Karyna McGlynn

CALIFORNIA KING

Behind closed doors, he bores me.
His frank, functional sensuality
lumbers across the too-big bed
like I am not Goldilocks, like I will
not leap up or eat up his lukewarm
porridge, not clutter up his cutlery.
Now knifing—Now forking—
His utility ululates me, strains me
of stupid, so what do I care: mouth
full, brain blunted, body a wrung
knee-sock on the chair-back. Wait.
My whole world smells of marinara
& strife. See me spread butter.
See me spread eagle. See me keep
pleasing this rubber republican dick.
He talks dirty in fleece, but I bleat:
Have some almonds & cream sherry
O yes cream sherry! He shushes &
solves for X. Big teddy bear! Eyes like
flat buttons sewn-on & so what?
When I put my finger to his stitches,
he spills his Right Stuff on my runway,
touching secondary sex characteristics
like spots on some twister mat:
right breast yellow, left testicle red,
another flick of the spinner? O sure.
In his Kingdom of Bore, how richly
he bores me, he bores me, he bores me!

Karyna McGlynn is the author of I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize from Sarabande Books), Scorpionica (New Michigan Press), Alabama Steve (Sundress Publications), and The 9-Day Queen Gets Lost On Her Way to the Execution (forthcoming from Willow Springs Editions). Her poems have recently appeared in The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Black Warrior Review, AGNI and Witness. Karyna recently received PhD from the University of Houston, where she was the Managing Editor of Gulf Coast. She is currently the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin and serves as Senior Poetry Editor for Devil's Lake.