MAYDAY

In Defense of My Yankee Boyfriend
by Rachel Stempel

Contributed By:

Couple
Image by Anna Prosekova from Pixabay

in defense of my yankee boyfriend

 

i want nothing

more than randomized curvature

from yours then his then yours again

 

feign my line of questioning to drain

chromosomal sacks of malcontent from every whatever

i spit to flame.

 

from the underbelly i settle hard

swallows gauzed in sweat or other. i carve myself anew

& instinctively age five years to spite myself:

 

how liberals claim territory

with partially digested rage. in our crustacean romance

i let it happen.

RACHEL STEMPEL is a genderqueer Jewish poet and educator. They were a finalist in the 2020 New Delta Review Chapbook Content, longlisted for the 2020 Fish Publishing Poetry Prize, and their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Nasiona, New Delta Review, The Journal, Penn Review, Porter House Review, and elsewhere.

Filed Under: Poetry

Further Reading

NOTES TOWARD A GENREFICATION OF LITERARY FICTION by Claire Harlan Orsi

The romantic strain—the idea that individuals emanate unique works of art unconstrained by societal or intellectual strictures—is as potent as ever in contemporary thinking and teaching about writing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the relationship of literary fiction to genre fiction, a category that literary writers tend to deplore. Take a few sample […]

Contributor Bios for Issue 9 Summer 2015

Issue 9 Summer 2015 PAUL ADLER received his MFA from Columbia University, where Matthew Zapruder selected his thesis manuscript as winner of the 2012 David Craig Austin Prize. Paul currently works as the Assistant Editor of Westchester Magazine. JACOB M. APPEL is the author of the novels The Biology of Luck and The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up. His fourth collection […]

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