Fly Trap
From your mattress
in the morning, it
looks like a two-foot
long condom hanging
from a hook, orange,
twirled like taffy
poured from a can,
dotted with its trophies.
I see it when I wake
to the memory of your fist
against my chest, your hand
open-palmed against my cheek—
that hasn’t happened yet,
but it’s something you said
last night—maybe,
“I guess I just assumed
you’d be the bottom,”
or,
“You mean if I choked you
during sex it wouldn’t be ok?”
Sometimes I wish I were a woman
so at least I could say
all men are the same:
wolves. But then, you tell me,
honey, don’t you? You tell me
I’m the woman
and you’re the wolf,
the stallion’s thrust,
the seed, the man.
And I lay here as you snore
watching sun stream past a fly snare,
your sweaty skin stuck to my back
and a bruise blossoming
on the corner of my
affection, a fly
in your trap, a nice
shiksa lady to bring
home to your Jewish
mother.
Said the Spider to the Fly
We
stand in
your kitchen.
The water boils.
A symphony swells
from a little black box.
“This is the kind of music
they play when a vampire
bites his pray,” you say.
Yes. You are right.
You clutch my
hands, yank,
bite.
Jacob Budenz is a writer, performer, and occasional witch living in Baltimore. He keeps a small journalistic art blog at afflatusarts.tumblr.com.