Gabrielle Grace Hogan
As Night Draws Its Sad Face Across the Window
hope is all
percussion & lace
it’s garrulous
it runs its mouth
into the wall
the girl
descends on me
i search my mouth for a key
this room spacious
as a heart attack
the earth feels like a question mark curled under a nail
i have known desire
but it’s been awhile
the heart is a hologram
i want to want touch
the simple sugar of its swell
the swell
of my ass
precedes itself
i would like to not waste me
would like to take two maybe three
fingers inside & feel anything
i’ve never been good at this i mean
entering i mean
exiting
the elevator is a space to breathe other breaths
the bedroom is a space to do the same with much less certainty
hips
a folding chair
a salt lick
sex
a gut in the knife
warm-bodied puppetry
O ephemeral guillotine
O wolfish entr’acte
the audience gasps its legs
around the stage the hero
does not need Prozac the hero
does not need biweekly therapy
the hero fucks
O pornographic pharmacy
i think of the dirt behind every nail
before it forks my flesh
i feel every absent gem
every pill that pulls my stomach up
into my eyeballs
the night is dressed in a suit of bodies
& i am
waiting
to feel clean enough again
to undress in front of it
percussion & lace
it’s garrulous
it runs its mouth
into the wall
the girl
descends on me
i search my mouth for a key
this room spacious
as a heart attack
the earth feels like a question mark curled under a nail
i have known desire
but it’s been awhile
the heart is a hologram
i want to want touch
the simple sugar of its swell
the swell
of my ass
precedes itself
i would like to not waste me
would like to take two maybe three
fingers inside & feel anything
i’ve never been good at this i mean
entering i mean
exiting
the elevator is a space to breathe other breaths
the bedroom is a space to do the same with much less certainty
hips
a folding chair
a salt lick
sex
a gut in the knife
warm-bodied puppetry
O ephemeral guillotine
O wolfish entr’acte
the audience gasps its legs
around the stage the hero
does not need Prozac the hero
does not need biweekly therapy
the hero fucks
O pornographic pharmacy
i think of the dirt behind every nail
before it forks my flesh
i feel every absent gem
every pill that pulls my stomach up
into my eyeballs
the night is dressed in a suit of bodies
& i am
waiting
to feel clean enough again
to undress in front of it
Biography
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Gabrielle Grace Hogan is a poet from St. Louis, Missouri. She resides in Austin, Texas while she pursues her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin as part of the New Writers Project. Her work has been published by the Academy of American Poets, Sonora Review, the Chicago Review of Books' Arcturus, and others. Her micro-chap Sentimental Violence: Some Poems About Tonya Harding is available in a free PDF from Ghost City Press. She is the Poetry Editor of Bat City Review and Co-Editor of You Flower / You Feast, an anthology of works inspired by Harry Styles. Her social media and projects can be found on her website gabriellegracehogan.com.
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