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Krysia Wazny McClain

Jack-in-the-Pulpit IV (1930) by Georgia O’Keeffe

 

How to explain it? Georgia here should not be shocking—

P-town rental. Still, in the plastic over the print, my reflection

caricatures me, standing at the foot of the bed in vintage ‘90s

jeans waiting for K to come through with the dildo

we boiled in a shallow pan, turning it, floor model

bought at a discount. Later, I’ll read that Jack-in-the-Pulpit

 

requires little care to grow, to give the spadix what it needs

to preach from beneath its hood of green and purple flowers—

no affection, no tenderness wanted for the flowers to give way

 

to clusters of red berries, to possess the sculpted quality

of hot peppers in miniature. Sometimes K kisses my neck

and chest in a flurry of soft blows, frenzy of thirst.

 

Just before, she exhales a small scoffing sound that witnesses

the absurdity of us, bound so fast with such a light touch.

The painting represents the midpoint in a series that runs

 

from real to abstract: a flame of deep blue with a ghost

inside, flaring white, haloed by green. Can I count my fantasies

and dreams since I first allowed myself to think?

 

We chose the dildo for its blue-green swirl. The idea of it

turns me on, and I almost never want it again. Later that night

K and I declare our devotion on the cold, still shore

 

before dosing ourselves with edibles to be sure we sleep.

Under Georgia’s eye, each of us wakes in the night to check

the other’s breathing, to hold her warmth close, to breathe.

 

 

Pleasure Bay

 

She tracks my location to Pleasure Bay

and is jealous that I am at the beach

with my husband again, listening

to the townie women behind us

talk about their Southie childhoods

and the Italians their fathers told them

were dirty, when suddenly, after the twelfth

lady has situated herself too close to our towels,

the women greet a newcomer—oh hello, Father!

A priest has arrived in shades and trunks.

He asks after their grandbabies and nieces

then sheds his top and swims to the other end

of Pleasure Bay, undeterred by the parts

per million of contaminant. And I wonder

if I will ever separate duty from desire.

Have I gotten irreversibly lost, looking

for lust? I’m not lying when I say

the path has been serpentine

since I first encountered myself.

I wonder if the ladies pine after

one another, if the priest offers advice—

if the original sin had been bigger,

would my soul be easier. The priest emerges

on the other shore to speak

with a parishioner in shorts.

Care is a romance never served cold.

The ladies keep confessing.

 

 

Ode to the Ocean on a Last Date

 

O winged swimmers

O drunken swarm

O swollen ocean

gargling flies

I never got used to you

and so you remain

resin, an amber token

unformed, the stripe

of cold that lapped

her waist and mine,

threatening to leave us

flecked with no knowing

Krysia Wazny McClain is a writer whose work has appeared in the Colorado Review, Milk Press, and Bloodroot Literary Magazine, among other publications. Krysia is also a volunteer community organizer for prison abolitionist causes and an editor of academic and organizational texts that contribute to social change. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and performs as the sapphic pigeon poet Livia Dove with the Boston Poetry Brothel.

© Bicoastal Review 2025. All rights reserved.

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