Katherine Anderson Howell

Dildos in the Garden of Good and Evil

The sex toys live a second life here.
Rather than choking landfill,
serve as garden gnomes,
marking a pleasure path
the Adams, Eves, Steves, and
madams trip down.

That one there, purple veined
among the roses,
hides a fairy house behind
its ball-bearing studded girth.

Within the pendulous halesia,
the silver bullet beckons,
“Come in. Ring the bells.”

The glass one, double-sided,
wraps carefully around the butterfly
puddler, guarding the delicates.

The strap-on straps around the trunk
now, provides a nice step to climb
the oak, hide in its branches,
read a book propped 
up by the G spot wand.

At the end of the path,
the plug stands guard
among the toadstools,
warning innocents away
from the forbidden fungi.

Marshmallow Fluff

I want to ask / can we write a poem of one / liners from our dreams / mine would begin / there is raw meat on the starlings / his would follow / running barefoot again through the airport /but we don’t do / that thing anymore so I’m / standing in the kitchen eating / chocolate cake topped with marshmallow / fluff that he made with our baby / I’m eating it straight / from the cake stand a voice / in my head says / you don’t do this thing anymore / I say back / whose tongue is it / licking chocolate / from the spoon / whose finger is it / wiping the spoon / whose lips suck / that finger / what the fuck / do you think / I am doing

 

Dream after My Husband says We Should Stay Married for Financial Partnership

He kisses her, skin
faintly green like hundreds,
hair silver coins, lips
lined with copper,
eyes with gold.

They’re passionate, this
pair. Her diamond
teeth nip his lip, leave
their blood mark, and he
moans like he never
moaned for my regular
enamel; his fingers pluck
her jingling hair. Mine is
silent, lacks that aural
appeal. His hand squeezes
that green chin
as if he could never
have enough, leaves darker
green prints in her flesh.
My face is just
the color of ordinary
and he’s had plenty.

 

Katherine Anderson Howell writes and parents in Washington, D.C. She is a 2018 Pushcart Prize Nominee, and the editor of Fandom as Classroom Practice: A Teaching Guide (2018, Iowa). Her poems and essays can be found in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Juke Joint Mag, Stillwater Review, The Rumpus, among others. She curses and complains about CMOS on Twitter at @GenKatieOrgana.