SEXY IS THE AUNT WHO

An out-of-sight-out-of-mind star I cannot call out to it On one fine-weather day I will ask the Elle about it From inside the stellar dark a new star gives me its word.

Like the child of a beautiful model globe the Elle captures me & the stars of my lips through the mirror of her lips We lose everything as trees lose everything as stars lose everything as songs lose everything.

I scribbled verses with the hand that was left like a bolt from the blue, I fell upon Elle.

The limitless snowfall of hands the solitary-loneliness of two the countless fountains of palms the pleasure of a pair in an infinite field a nosegay bouquet of cheeks drifts away.

III

Birds made us suffer Stars made us miserable Lit glass tumblers were lying about Sightless birds pass through a net of light Countless glistening hairs This moronic letter that resembles a cellblock.

The white freesia prison will soon catch fire And fall away like tears.

IV

Birds warmed up this world Beneath me a she has her eyes shut Below me an Elle has her eyes closed Birds bring us a green grassland.

Her calfskin eyelids are the color of wet gold Like Leda like a Holy white lily her torso-fork is empty I even spotted a beggar begging there All sorts of malices were floating about I can even move the white cylindrical forms.

A Buddha is dead.

V

Like the darkness each instant brings the blue sky nearer One-by-one I take off her pearls We get turned on like airplanes & grow sad like flatfish Like a single star on earth we are one My gametes flutter like a dole of doves I write a verse as old as a Tibetan temple Then rip it up I write a verse I write a verse Then rip it up It had a red rose scent It had a gassy stench.

Her cheek seen fogged like an icecap Her sex seen misted like flowers & birds will go on forever and ever living in the wind like erratic rocks.

Sightless birds pass through a net of light.

SEXY IS THE AUNT WHO HOLDS THE MUG

FIONA LANDERS

My family has a history of giving sexy coffee mugs as gifts. It is not weird, it is good. My sister, Lily, gave me my most treasured sexy mug when she told me she was pregnant. When she let me know we would both soon be bringing a new life into the world. Her: a baby. Me: a sexy, full-grown aunt.

She placed the mug in my palm, and we both teared up. “It was the ugliest one I could find.”

I curled my stumpy fingers around its irregular handle and gave it a pathetic air swirl. I could feel the bold desperation of the mug crying out to my very soul. I gazed at it and my jaw collapsed, knowing I would never again behold a pair of fonts more cheerful or grotesque. The text on the mug read Sexy Aunt, and you’d better believe the Sexy was bigger than the Aunt. The Sexy triumphantly took up two-thirds of the mug, the Aunt, a piddling third. Reminding us that an aunt who isn’t sexy probably shouldn’t take up any space at all.

There was a wholesome violence lurking within these fonts. The Sexy was not only

colossal, it was medieval — Carolingian calligraphy fit for a scroll, something unfurled by a maiden, announcing she just lost an archery competition and is now looking to get fucked by the village barrel maker. Or the village fishmonger. Or even the village gongfarmer (the guy who empties the latrines).

The Aunt font could only be described as Dungeon Nun — The Sound of Music of fonts. The Aunt font runs to the hills singing, “I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain. I have confidence that tonight I am getting railed by a real folksy-dom of a captain who enjoys harmonizing with his kids and stabbing Nazis in the ear if he has to.”

Everything about the mug shouts: I have no children and that is good, because I am far too busy with “sex” and scrapbooking my regrets. It screams: I just can’t stop sexting the assistant manager of Black Angus from this Marshall’s dressing room. Welp, looks like he wants to have traditional audio phone sex so away we go. Hello Rory, I’m at Marshall’s. Oh, you love the iconic swamp smell of Marshall’s, do you? You disgusting, bad, bad boy. Well you’re in luck, Rory, because I buy all my underwear here, and it doesn’t matter how many times I wash those suckers, they still retain that signature Marshall’s musk of rejected jelly beans and wet hay. Hang on to your dick, Rory, because this Marshall’s has an escalator. Yeah, it’s a big Marshall’s. Why don’t you take the escalator down to my vulva, we’re having a sale on seasonal popcorn. Yeah, those big tubs of holiday popcorn are on sale for $5.99 and they’re in the same aisle as the coat hangers. No, there isn’t any universal order to Marshall’s, it’s chaos, that’s why it’s so hot. Hang on, I’m just gonna have a sip of tea. Mmm-hmm, I’m drinking room-temp raspberry zinger out of my Sexy Aunt mug, Rory, try not to come all over the employee restroom at Black Angus. Don’t, Rory. Your superiors will find out and then you’ll never climb the corporate ladder of the Temecula Black Angus, and I want that for you because sexy aunts emotionally support losers. It comes with the territory. I see your potential Rory, it is minuscule, only the squinting eyes of a sexy aunt can see it — Okay, did you finish? Great, because I’m attempting to try on a romper and it’s gonna take 55 minutes minimum.

Sometimes I just stare at the mug and think, “God, I’m sexy and an aunt, what a conundrum.” Growing up, I didn’t have sexy aunts to look up to. It’s not that they weren’t physically attractive, it was their behavior that wasn’t very sexy.

Here’s a good example of my aunts’ unsexy behavior: When my dad — their brother-in-law — died from cancer at the age of 62, they processed their grief by accusing me and my sister of stealing a rocking horse. We caught wind of the accusation via our mother. She said, “Um, I just talked to Aunt Marge and she thinks you stole Aunt Gladys’s rocking horse while you were cleaning your dad’s stuff out of Grandma and Grandpa’s cellar.”

“Oh my god, poor Aunt Gladys,” I said. “She must be in so much distress over this missing rocking horse tragedy. Jeez, first Dad dying six days ago and now this? I better call her. Aunt Gladys, hi, it’s Fiona, the alleged rocking horse bandit. I’m so sorry your grief style is asshat, that must feel psychotic. Anyway, I just want-