POETRY BY KAT STANSHINE

BOSTOCK V. CLAYTON

the way you say “sex”

you take the murder out of it.

Supreme Court says who

you can and can’t deny.

like I don’t know everything

already.

talking to my therapist using

words like “ephemeral,”

“hubris,” jesus christ on my tongue.

I’m swallowing,

screeching or wailing

like a cat.

caterwauling

bullshit

flowers

nothing

the sex

the language

the climatic disruption

the cum

Supreme Court says I don’t know yet.

an archaeologist licks my bones.

I wanna die somewhere prettier.

green something fence squirreled around.

a good thing no matter what.

engrave my skin original.

consider the social upheaval.

sex me legally and forever ungentle.

Kat Stanshine currently lives in Philadelphia, where she studied and taught poetry before everything got too weird. During undergrad she earned the 2019 William Van Wert Creative Writing Award and served on the board of Babel Poetry Collective. She owns five swords and a spiked bat. Find more of her writing in Bedfellows, Hobart Pulp, Theta Wave, and around the web.