Cougar is the most searched
type of porn, the clickbait claims,
making it my lucky year to turn fifty,
to turn away the young men who follow
my crow’s feet across the room at fundraisers
and wedding receptions, their arms
jostling my lumbar saddlebags, their hellos
mimicking the nod they offer their grandpas
and sugar daddies. My college friends
email ‘80s lyrics as if I’d forget,
one in the group thread
insisting We’re jaguars!
I’d rather be a giraffe
or a salamander, bright-
spotted and unconcerned
about losing my tail, about aging
or sex we try to maintain
after DNA and gravity decide
our knees no longer can.
But jaguars know the risks
of aubade trysts, afternoons
unkind to our waning digestion.
Our fate, another says, is an idea
given to us, a meme
we shouldn’t ever like,
a dewclaw never touching
the ground enough to know how flesh gives.
Maybe I’d rather be a humpback
crooning across the seas.
Hailing from the farmland valleys of west Appalachia, BEN KLINE (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Author of the chapbooks Sagittarius A* and Dead Uncles along the forthcoming full-length It Was Never Supposed to Be, Ben is a storyteller, poet and Madonna megafan podcaster. His work appears in Florida Review, DIAGRAM, Copper Nickel, Bellingham Review, Gordon Square Review, POETRY, South Carolina Review and many other publications. Learn more about his work at https://benklineonline.wordpress.com/.
As a multi-media visual artist, KRISTIN ABIGAIL is captivated by the process of creating raw, unpolished pieces; playful lines balanced with soothing but vibrant colors and minimalistic compositions. Kristin’s work process is impulsive, her style approachable, and her art is accessible. Photography has been Kristin’s profession for 8 years, but in 2020 while she sat at home on unemployment, she felt herself being drawn to the non-digital arts of analog collage and calligraphy. Kristin reconnected with her adolescent-self who had doodles scribbled all over her school books and passed many a peaceful hour scrapbooking in the quiet of her childhood basement. Kristin believes that art acts as an access point to: freedom, inner peace, and the expression of pure originality. She believes that everyone is born to be a creator, and is active in amplifying and financially backing black and brown femme artists, as well as supporting art spaces that focus on social and financial inclusion. To Kristin, making art is an act of resistance.