Bless you,
stomach pump.
Bless you,
puce hole.
Bless you,
balcony
and cool
air that finds me
éthylique
on the floor
pushing in
the broken door.
I open it
and hate it
with equal
slosh.
Just wetting the
cork,
bless it.
Shorn
plum buds
pruned
from Thai basil
in Italian terracotta.
I do miss
traveling
with my poison
pen, loving
this cocktail,
lying about
would-be
devils, demons-
trating my vile
behaviors, all
excessed
and how
feckless
I used to
behave
bowing
boiling,
baring
my voluptuous
shoulders.
__________________________________
From Domestirexia by JoAnna Novak. Copyright © 2024. Available from Soft Skull Press. “Dear Unfeeling Martinis” was previously published in Conjunctions.
JoAnna Novak
JoAnna Novak's memoir Contradiction Days was published by Catapult in July 2023. Her short story collection Meaningful Work won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest and was published by FC2. She is the author of the novel I Must Have You and three books of poetry: New Life; Abeyance, North America; and Noirmania. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the New York Times, The Atlantic, and other publications.
