Gabrielle Grace Hogan

poem to be read without anyone else in the room

in the shower my libido growls         like a thick-throated bear           my muscles under this heat
rattle                       & unrope         pearlescent soap suds                drape my genitals in jewels

like a toxic algae bloom            my pubic hair folds       into the wet            of an anonymous lake
in this case your sweat             which i don’t name       for fear you’ll know     it’s yours

tomorrow’s genderless god       won’t punish us for this       but they will eat us whole          limb
from succulent limb                   i don’t even like sex           or have it all that much              but

sex poems             are the most fun to write          when i keep you         where the mouth makes
an O                       in ejaculation or in grief            nothing’s hotter          than a paradox

a möbius strip         down of morals & prom dresses         riddled with mothballs    like bullets
in a closet door       in my greatest fantasy i throw            our voices to the sky        to be melted

into milky pink plumes         my throat seized                  by fingernail beds         blue as a vein
waiting to be cut                   as all the beautiful things        at the bottom of           the ocean

 
there are too many           beautiful things                at the bottom of         the ocean         
if you hollow it out           how many beautiful things     will you kill                 we should

 
wash ourselves in them             we should go there is only         so much time                to drown


Gabrielle Grace Hogan is a poet from St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming in Sonora ReviewSpiral OrbLEVELERThe Penn Review, and others. In 2017, she won Bradley University's chapter of the Academy of American Poets' University & College Prize for her poem "pools." She is currently pursuing her bachelor's in Creative Writing, with plans to pursue an MFA upon graduation. Her website is gabriellegracehogan.tumblr.com, where you can find links to all of her social media and also poems.