Gazpacho
Poetry by Chloe BryanMen are always saying they don't know
the components of a good life. Well,
why don't you try a few things out?
Like I do: pickleball, liquor, paying the internet
bill. Just don't attempt the nights I spend
pacing like a caged lynx around
my apartment, swirly on engineered booze,
wondering if, after all this time, this heartshed,
my soul's passions are just sex & soup.
One time, John was down on his job, feeling
socially and fiscally underloved, and I said:
They wouldn't have promoted you
if you didn't add value! And he said:
I don't want to add value to a company. And
I was like okay Karl Marx, and I slunk
to the bathroom to sulk for an hour,
not because I was mad, but because I agreed
with him. I sat on the floor, skirt hiked up
and ass bare on the prewar tile, and it was all so
cold & sexy, kind of like gazpacho,
and I thought: Now this—this is divinity.
This is what it's all about.
Chloe Bryan is a poet and editor. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cream City Review, HAD, and Burial Magazine, among other publications. She holds an MFA in poetry from Hollins University.