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 living in Knoxville, TN. She holds an MFA from Hollins University, and her work has appeared in Cream City Review, HAD, and Burial Magazine, among other publications. Read more at chloebryan.net.