Inflammations // Exaggerations

My PCP insists, Take two
twice a day for nine weeks
and we’ll see how you do,

and I swallow nine
with warm chardonnay
like any Friday night

strangers bless my sheets.
They are safe with your PrEP
and Cosentyx. Rick arrives

with his backward hat,
big ass and fake name
around eleven. I strip

my confidence bare
in lamp light, my t-shirt
a modest black veil. I gorge

his full naked body. I gale
into orgasm, pinwheeling
my arms to disperse

his smoke. Every Rick
smokes. Keep your mask
on. But lips are doors

I lick to enter, pretending
I belong like a pent-up gust
cursing pulled hair or bad teeth.

Quiet as cooled ash,
Rick douses his cigarette
with spit on his thumb.

Our ammonia lingers,
slowness I billow
and cumili, a white elephant

tiptoeing his underwear,
socks, the toenails
I chewed off that afternoon.

Avoid added stress, but you
know this. Rick gathers
his clothes like nightfall

rustle and chirps, no mirror
for his frat boy cosplay,
tucking his curls back

under his ball cap.
I can’t see his eyes
and fumble answers

about my name, the wine,
nearby Uber pickups. Let me know
if you experience any problems.

My doctor facts the matter
of my conditions, advises
Some people won’t understand

you’re ok. Rick shrivels
in my hug, his ride calling
from the corner. “Hey,

you Dick?”

Ben Kline (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Author of the chapbooks SAGITTARIUS A* (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) and DEAD UNCLES (Driftwood Press, 2021), Ben was the 2021 recipient of Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. His work appears in POETRY, Southeast Review, Rejection Letters, The Shore, Thrush, West Trade Review, CutBank, fourteen poems, Limp Wrist and many other publications. You can read more at https://benklineonline.wordpress.com/.