Tuesday poem #291 : Nicole Steinberg : Gag Me

Under a grim mobile of teeth I play

a trick on the seeds. My gummiest parts

held together with royal icing & a prayer,

I trade dharma for diarrhea, every hole

tart to the taste & bleeding fog—foe-ridden,

I gag on the desolate princess bones life molts

& leaves behind. I abandon the smug party,

sober yet somehow not sobbing, hollowed

by a smooth coil of grief, some husky fucker’s

lustrous missile searching for egress via my chest.

How do I unfuck my habitat if I dwell inside

the crumbling curve of a large intestine?

In a place where nothing grows

I must always be kind to women.

Nicole Steinberg is the author of Glass Actress (Furniture Press Books, 2017), Getting Lucky (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2013), and several chapbooks, including Fat Dreams (Barrelhouse, 2018). Her work has been featured or reviewed in the New York Times, Newsweek, Flavorwire, Bitch, and Hyperallergic, and her poetry was selected by Penn State's Pennsylvania Center for the Book for the 2016 Public Poetry Project poster series. She's the founder of New York's EARSHOT reading series and she lives in Philadelphia. Find her at nicolesteinberg.net.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan