Karen Locascio is a graduate of the MFA program at UMass, Boston, where she won an Academy of American Poets prize. Her work has appeared in Paper Nautilus, Cider Press Review, and Window Cat Press, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut collection, May All My Wounds Be Mortal, won the first Ron Schreiber Poetry Prize and will be published by Hanging Loose Press in early 2017. In her spare time, Karen enjoys genealogy research and fantasy football, and reads submissions for Spry Literary Journal. Originally from New Jersey, Karen currently lives in Dorchester.

Karen Locascio.

We eat, we drink, we talk, we make out…

Your hand slips watery

under my waistband

and I present my vulva to you

every night—ta-da!—

like it’s a big deal

because it is.

I’m aspartame; I’m an oyster

and you drink too much to shuck me open.

I’m ash, honey, and brown liquor.

You’re always puppy-dogging

lovers in others leagues.

I’m maiming flowers in your park

instead of asking about your day

(was it just awful?) and you

move mountains instead of just climbing them.

I’m tree-meat

breaking out of my bark

not hiding in the bushes

waiting for you to bike past.

You choose me;

I go home alone.

— Karen Locascio

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