after reading Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar

In the Garden of Evil    I’m gonna be the greatest      classic suit of blue smoke 

gobs of maraschino syrup    Roaring 20s pomade     channel Daisy Buchanan &

soil a wealthy man’s shirts         sugar cube rosin      grenadine god spritzer     

all the hotels in Vegas must have bibles      prayers hemmed in the marriage licenses    

fuck romantic ideologies:      greats only being greats if they were in pain     inebriated

I barely had half a glass of wine once    & left the party wanting to kiss the entire room

brass flare melting the big band into a mirror   a kind of Saturday night prayer

o, holy spirit of iced cristal      health class struck the fear of god in me 

both with drinking & sex        forgive me & the sins my friends have made

in the swimming pool    did Eve not come to warn you      you can’t take me anywhere       

unless  anywhere is a church              a Parisian back patio   confession booth    

in the record store atop Sinatra’s grave   if sin is not synonymous with leather 

then what really is    miraculous     I cannot bear to be filthy with pulp    

sequined with redemption      vinyl is coming back in fashion    & I guess so too is god     

glitter of catholic guilt      my vices are silver exuberances      tourniquets of a silk tie

I un-ribbon like snakes between a raucous jaw    whistle before seven years of bad luck    

the first woman   a man wrote a song about   built a tolerance to cyanide    

the apple cannot force me to do anything but sing

Adrienne Novy is a Jewish and neurodivergent artist with a rare genetic disorder. She is a nominee for Bettering American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and is a 2020 graduate from Hamline University’s Creative Writing program. She is the author of Crowd Surfing With God (Half Mystic Press, 2018) and the mini-chapbooks, We Have Each Other’s Flowers (Zines + Things, 2020) and Pull (Ginger Bug Press, 2020). Her most recent work can be found in Passages North and “You Flower/ You Feast: An Anthology of Prose, Poems, & Plays inspired by Harry Styles”. She lives in the Midwest & has a cat named Laurie.