Julien Strong
Knots at the Kink Club
The old gods hover at the corners of the room
like drunk voyeurs, sloppy with their curses
and encouragements, too lazy to pick up
a length of rope. They loll on pillows, on divans,
eat grapes and watch the mortals do
the messy work of knotting desire into something
forbidden yet genteel. Rules, codes. See how softly
her hands move over the bound man’s shoulders,
see how quiet he grows beneath her. The rasp of leather
against flesh is part of that stillness. It isn’t something else.
But the Olympians want the tears to keep flowing
even after the lights come up, want the flogging
to happen out in the streets; want to twist
every argument into a marriage arranged long before
our bodies knew what we were promising.
Turk’s head, clove hitch. Chinese button,
monkey’s fist. What would you wish for if you knew
it wouldn’t turn on you?
The Detour
San Francisco, 1993
Michael wanted a drink
and dragged me in, men
six deep at the bar, denim dick
to leather-covered ass,
disco-thump of hips tensed
for an evening of fucking.
I’m twenty-two. I’m six-three
in my boots; my Greek fisherman’s cap
and second-hand leather jacket erase
my sex from everywhere but
my face. Pulled into the swell
of this daddy body ocean
flecked with foam, sweat spilling beer,
I’m storking my neck for a drink
when a hand grabs my ass, the finger
sliding in at the crux of my crotch.
I’m supposed to be
a lesbian. I’m supposed
to not want men. I who have been
so afraid of them, so shamed
by the weight of their want
or disgust, I float on the thrust
of this new current
and don’t turn. He thinks
I’m a man. The groping
almost tender in its skill,
a practiced wrist casting a net.
And the unnamed
creatures brushed against,
the ripples they make
breaking through the surface
of my skin.
Authority (Midlife Remix)
“The authority of a plum is different from that of,
say, beauty, but no less complex.”
—Carl Phillips, Poetry Society
Mine is where beauty
breaks: in the fruit’s fat crevice,
the stubby umbilicus
of the stem. I have borne
such sweetness, never more
than now. Past ripeness,
past purchase, my dark seam
split in the dirt, juice dried
to a crust. Touch
my new-bloomed
bruises, contusions traced
by tongues of angels—
wasps and flies. Dig out the pit
that’s not stone after all
but a heart too easily swallowed.
Taste this flesh. Here,
beneath this aerie of bent
branches, on this exhausted
ground of drought.
Don’t give me your theories.
Give me your mouth.
Julien Strong is the author of two novels and two books of poetry, most recently "The Mouth of Earth" (University of Nevada Test Site Poetry Series). They spent half their life on the West Coast and half their life on the East Coast and now teach creative writing at Central Connecticut State University. Their work has appeared in POETRY, Rattle, RHINO, The Southern Review, and many other journals. When not doing writing and teaching things, they make pots, grow vegetables, and fight the good fight to stop AI from taking over higher education.