Pine Sol

for Joseph Keith

Have you ever tracked mud into the house?
The floors waxy and pine sol
the carpet thick with cream

and the sigh of dead leaves
waking up in your father’s arms
the mop still in his hands

You can smell the soap on his knees
everything is fresh and wet
and you, who are frog child
croak creek and mud

He doesn’t look
down at your webbed feet
the witch fingers that twig in your hair

A gust of wind sweeps out
his mouth and warms
the blood in your ears

Your hands are dry
and you are clean again

He is still holding the mop

My cunt is a bullet

that leaves no scars

My tender pocket
tattoos pleasure
with squid ink from inside
and I’ll mark you
my name in the shape of
a soft bite

I’ll lick you
clean of shame and starvation and
all those silly things
they taught you at school

where women are carved from ribs
and men of god
and sinful love is fasted and not
something to savor

Kayla Monteiro is an American mixed black queer poet, fiction writer, and freelance editor living in Manchester. Her work often explores themes of race, gender, and sexuality, usually through a surrealist lens. She writes because she has to. Her voice is how she dissects, appreciates, and (sometimes) escapes a world that feels like a strange dream. This year, she completed her creative writing MA at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poems can be found in the 2022 winter edition of the erbacce poetry journal.