E. Kristin Anderson

I Can't Take Another Handshake

                                                  ​(after Dance Hall Crashers)

​If the gold road leads to Hell this concrete is purgatory, slick
with a summer storm. I don’t know how to get to there,
 
to that place where we pretend this is normal. Nature knows.
My thickness is in my thighs and when I dream of birthing snakes
 
it’s just a detour—I know my body belongs to you this year
and even in this my snake babies cling to me and I will let them
 
bleed you dry. Still I write you another letter. I’m so afraid
that a day will come when I won’t care but I need you to know
 
that when I keep smiling it’s because these are the teeth that will
defy your expectations when you’re least expecting women to bite.
 
I see the human children playing in the rain and this portrait
of America is just as real as the children marching in the streets,
 
just as real as your dead-eyed stare when confronted by the truth,
just as real as your hands held open for the smoke of false prophets,
 
for firearms, for feminine death in the doctor’s office. Yes, when
the door closes behind me I’m wrecked. But do you really believe
 
you can take me out with a banana peel and a form letter?
I’m waiting because if I can’t get through to you with acid rain
 
I’ll have to try acid reflux. I know where I’ll be when the floods
wash us all clean of you. But every road is filthy with blood--
 
when we get there we’ll have to plant our blood in the ground
and birth from our cities a creature to hold when we’re lost again.
 

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E. Kristin Anderson is a poet and glitter enthusiast living mostly at a Starbucks somewhere in Austin, Texas. She is the editor of Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture (Anomalous Press), and her work has appeared in many magazines. She is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry including Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), 17 seventeen XVII (Grey Book Press), and Behind, All You’ve Got (Semiperfect Press, forthcoming). Kristin is a poetry reader at Cotton Xenomorph and an editorial assistant at Sugared Water. Once upon a time she worked nights at The New Yorker. Find her on Twitter at @ek_anderson.