qarrtsiluni

I’m a swift walker
a queen bed rocker
a girdle stalker
a spider smacker
a monkey pile
a trip down that girl’s aisle,
a stay at home mom-o-phile.
Shape shifter, beauty grifter,
sexual drifter
watch me jiggle and whistle,
I’m built like a missile.
I’m waiting for you, tucked in lush grass.

Or maybe I’m a little slimmer
a moon-y glimmer, a blinking
swimmer in an old fish eye.
The one you wish for,
the one you’d hiss for, so
pack this cellulite
in your momma’s sigh.
I’m nearly darling, a timeless
starling, a little more care–
less than free.
So bring us the hum,
a symphony of drums, the rumble
of a good epiphany.

by Karla Huston and Cathryn Cofell

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Process notes

Cathryn wrote the first stanza after a conversation about a persona we’d created for our collaborative work, some jokes about funny poems the persona would write if she had the chance. Since the persona is a character called “Thigh,” it made sense that we imagined her with a twin, one she didn’t always get along with, one who wasn’t exactly the same. After Cathryn wrote the first stanza, Karla responded with the other “leg” of the story.