This work is part of TAG: A Poeta Project. It is a  response to Overwhelming Illusion by Kari Achatz

“Trick – A response to Kari Achatz”

is it lipstick or is it blood

& if it’s blood is it yours or is it mine &

if it’s yours how do i know it isn’t corn

syrup mixed with food coloring

everything tastes sweet to me but sugar

addiction is a fallacy like love a coterie

of dopamine

serotonin

oxytocin

vasopressin & looking into my eyes for a

clinically controlled amount of time

she said that she had never seen the statue

of liberty disappear like that before

i always read ‘heaux’ as hoax instead

of hoes as in a derivative of whore which

is a word used to delegitimize the influence

of mary magdalene, who has most likely

been conflated with other mary’s of the bible

& therefore was not actually a sex worker

née prostitute, but still i like to think

of her as getting paid by a stained glass jesus

somewhere in the future a rich man

is carving his casket from the ivory tusks

of the last living elephant & i don’t laugh

anymore at baptisms performed in the rooftop

pool of the gansevoort hotel

what’s the difference

fire is just as purifying as water & i only know i exist

because of the shadow my body makes

when the light touches me

By Meghann Boltz