Skip to main content
Poetry

C. Russell Price

By September 26th, 2020No Comments

Human Flesh Search Engine

In the Taqueria steam, you make me an organ
cooler with your neon-Jack-Daniel’s-dusty kiss.

The city is in shambles and we’re somehow still
breathing within our generation of body stackers.

My sweet, beat me up around the old oak tree;
call me, at least once, your Southern Comfort.

I have measured our love in bottle-caps
and beer boxes. I dismantled the ceiling

fan last night because you were so far away
…I’ve been sleepwalking. Happy people kill

themselves all the time to the happy music
we put on as we fuck. My hands: raw, Cloroxed

hummingbirds. The last night you slept
on my green as a sea settee, I soft-shoed

to the kitchen, blew out the pilot,
each shallow breath another knob turning up.

You say: ugly girls write the best poetry.
On my loneliest nights, I slip into someone

else with a bad, blond wig and a coworker’s hand
-me-down dress. I dance on every floor

of my apartment building—as if my body is
everything flying out of a wild, unlocked sanctuary—

as if everything unused is collapsing.

 

 

 

 

 

C-Russell-Price-Dream-Pop-Press
C. Russell Price is a genderqueer Appalachian punk poet originally from Virginia but now lives on the north side of Chicago. Their work has appeared in Court GreenLambda LitNimrod International, and elsewhere. Their chapbook Tonight, We Fuck The Trailer Park Out of Each Other was released in 2016 by Sibling Rivalry Press. They are a Literary Death Match champion, a Lambda Fellow in poetry, and an alright human. They are currently at work on poetry dealing with the queer apocalypse and a collection of essays.