Loudspeaker:: 'The Glory of Women' and more poems by Emily Holland

Writing

Mar 26

Featured

WUSSY is proud to present new work by queer poet, Emily Holland.
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly.

The Glory of Women

on sunday mornings you sing
glory to god & it’s palm sunday
there’s more singing more holy water

incense scattered down pews to tuck
everyone into place this palm sunday
it carries you up to the altar

where a wafer floats on incense
to your tongue—everyone in line
& you can’t remember the altar

or the body of christ or
the hand that put it on your tongue
you’re thinking about Her

body between your thighs & how
you want to grow a palm tree out back
& you think you’ll fold the fronds

into a thousand tiny crosses the palm
tree is only yours when She’s not looking—
a thousand whispers when She sings

Why I Can’t Say the Word Lesbian Without Thinking of My Therapist

At Sarah’s thirteenth birthday party, they
said Your mom is—what

Your mom is—sinner

is abomination is
the thing God warned us about.

There must be something
in the blood insoluble—

how it turns red when touched by oxygen,
we, too, turn from God

when touched

by someone like her.

. . .

Prom night, after dancing, they said
Your sister is—what

Your sister is—acting different

cut her beautiful brown hair
down to the root,

pruned it back
so far it might not grow again,

acting less feminine, more

in control.

. . .

My first year at college

they said You are—what

You are—lesbo

descendant of dyke,
divergence in a long lineage
of choice. Tainted bloodline.

Desire never matters here.

These are the choices passed down to us. To be
or to become

or to have always been.

These are what we call signs only
in hindsight:

smell of bubblegum chapstick sharing a sleeping bag
tasting a drop of her sweat after a scuffle on the court
wanting to hold her hand yes but what

My Mom Dated A Boy

My mom dated
a boy whose family

was in the mafia,
which means

on their dates down
the road to get

softserve at Humdinger
he’d pass off

a new stereo
or a gold watch

to help the trail
run cold.

Maybe this soured
her on boys:

maybe she knew
she liked girls

then—the one
taking their order

swirling ice cream
better on her

cone than his,
getting the cherry

dip just right. Only
one drip fell

on her thumb;
she was quick

to lick it off
before he could.

—

Emily Holland is a queer poet with a BA in Creative Writing and English from The George Washington University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Impossible Archetype, Screen Door Review, FOLIO, and Argot and have been nominated for Best of the Net and two Pushcart Prizes. Lineage, her debut chapbook of poems, is slated for release August 2019 from dancing girl press. She is the managing editor for Poet Lore.