DEAR ANNIE,
by Lauren Bender
"Annie was reading a four-page note from Minda, two pages of which were a sestina that used
the repeating words Fang, blossom, locomotive, tongue, movie, and bi-curious.”
- The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson
It seems much darker in the movie
theater than it is and my tongue
takes off like a rushing locomotive
through your lips. We make a blossom
of mouth. You have a tooth half fang
that has me feeling bi-curious.
I can't not be bi-curious.
If I glance up at the movie
(a vampire flick, flashing fang
over the bloody lips and tongue)
everything is sexual, the blossom
between my legs a violent locomotive
vibration, a sparking locomotive
beast. It's a wild ride, being bi-curious.
Adults will tell you how you'll blossom
as a teen as if you're part of a movie
about the normalcy of puberty. A tongue
is normal, I think now, what about a fang?
They never give specifics. But the fang
would bother them less than the locomotive
force of gay-ness, I'm sure. Every tongue
wagging, God did not make the bi-curious.
Transgression is acceptable in a movie;
in reality, no one is meant to blossom
this way. I tuck you into the blossom
of my legs, swinging on top, your fang
lit from behind me by the flashing movie
screen. Now I can feel our locomotive
speed as we bear down on the bi-curious
black hole and its who-knows-what, my tongue
Gyroscope Review - !44