Mollyhouse: Issue Four

By Raymond Luczak

This fourth issue of Mollyhouse features artwork by Swoosh Manuel Vazquez as well as poetry and prose by Toni Artuso | Jessica Barksdale | Richard E. Brenneman | Dustin Brookshire | Aleathia Drehmer | Arthur Durkee | Mark Ellis | Raye Hendrix | Katrina Kaye | Ben Kline | Kathryn Kysar | Evelyn Louise May | Richard Natale | Chael Needle | William Reichard | Juanita Rey | Kim Roberts | Hilary Sideris | Sacul Nala Soliah | Tezozomoc | William T. Vandegrift, Jr. | Val Vera | Scott Wiggerman | Lorna Wood. This issue is edited by Raymond Luczak.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Handtype Press
• Release date: Feb 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005011376

Raymond Luczak

Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of twenty books. Titles include The Kinda Fella I Am: Stories and QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology. His Deaf gay novel Men with Their Hands won first place in the Project: QueerLit Contest 2006. His work has been nominated nine times for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He can be found online at raymondluczak.com.

Book preview

HILARY SIDERIS

INDIANA

We played Tag: I was It.

In Leesburg streets were brick,

air manure-thick. With my new

Brady Bunch lunch box, I scraped

poop off my Earth Shoe on the bus

ride home, past corn and bean

fields, rusted husks of trucks

on blocks, chained dogs in shanty

camps, Rose Kellogg’s falling

down house and one blue dress.

Oniony sweet, her sweat smell

lingered in the peeling vinyl seat.

Mark Span, her secret Santa,

gave her Dial. He let me wear his

jean jacket, gave Keith Smith

his last Juicy Fruit stick.

We moved there, Mom said,

because Dad quit his job.

In war I shot Keith in the thigh

with a bb. Coach Kinder taught

us Language Arts, direct object

and verb, fake-kicking Nance

Peacock, the fastest sixth grade

girl, too cute to be my friend.

I ran third leg, passed Nance

the baton. The relay team

I slowed down always won.

***

MISHAWAKA

It takes an alien

to squeeze my orange,

to slice my BLT’s pale

tomato, freeze my blue-

berry pop, chop pork,

do what I’d rather not,

a human who if caught

shall be detained

by law, swaddled in

foil at Centerville.

***

I HAVE BIG HANDS AND BIG FEET

I study neuter nouns

at Goodnight

Moon level.

I have big hands

and feet, I type,

but Duolingo

says Incorrect.

I learned names

for body parts

without gender

as a small

child. Female

pets were

spayed, males

neutered.

***

SYMPATHY

I dig through dirty

shirts for my swimsuit,

a well-worn one-piece

without which there’ll be

no beach—only a sea

of sleeveless black.

Once you sent a flowered

card with sympathy to say

you liked me. It made sense.

You didn’t speak English.

How long must I

rifle through the pile?

You tell me smile.

I flash a simile.

***

RAYE HENDRIX

INSTAGRAM CONFESSIONAL

mad respect 4 ur boundaries, but

I think it’s low key fucked up

that u say we’re friends but

u won’t let me follow ur finsta

as a form of revenge, I don’t tell u

that in ur most recent mirror selfie

it’s obvious u photoshopped ur ass

to look bigger bc the doorframe

behind u is curved

& when someone calls u on it

in the comments, u delete it

& DM me like omg is it that obv 4 real

I lie & say "omg girl no I didn’t even notice,

they’re just a no-life troll w/ nothing better 2 do"

but of course it was obv, the doorframe was curved

idk if we’re really friends since, like I said,

u won’t let me see ur finsta, & I know

I didn’t say anything abt ur obviously photoshopped ass,

& that I lied 2 u about it in ur DMs,

but it still makes me sad that u felt like ur ass isn’t good

enough on its own, bc it is

I wish someone had told u ur ass is incredible, ur ass

is immaculate, ur ass is a table I wanna set

with beautiful plates & eat from, but it’s not

as incredible as ur smile, which u never do

in pictures bc u hate ur teeth, but I love ur teeth,

bc I love u, like looking respectfully love u, like

consensually Netflix & chill love u, like let me walk

on the sidewalk closest to the cars love u,

like really high key no lie love u, & I wish

I had told u before now

but maybe u already know all that, & maybe

that’s y u won’t let me follow ur finsta

***

VAMPIRE GIRLFRIEND

I let my vampire girlfriend take out my tampon with her teeth.

My vampire girlfriend knows me better than my doctors. She tests my blood sugar with her tongue, tells me my blood type when I need it for a form.

When I bruise, my vampire girlfriend is there to kiss away the blue. I bruise so easily. I am covered in vampire kisses.

My vampire girlfriend can’t go into the sun so I don’t go into it either, but she buys me supplements to make sure I get my Vitamin D.

She has a strap-on we never use. My vampire girlfriend has perfect immortal hands, a statue from ancient Rome.

I keep her safe in our apartment with all the curtains drawn, so my vampire girlfriend will never die. She’ll never die. I won’t let this world have her.

***

THE VIRGIN

My IUD looks like the cross

of Saint Anthony the Abbot,

Father of All Monks, who

gave away or sold everything

he owned, including his sister,

to live the live of an ascetic.

Saint Anthony gave her—

his sister, her name lost

to the long history of men—

to a house of virgins,

its name like a woman’s

to the scribes.

My IUD looks like the cross

of Saint Anthony, Patron Saint

of skin diseases, gravediggers,

Rome. Anthony the Great,

illiterate and holy, absolutely

connected to divine truth.

When she was twenty,

Anthony the Great—who

owned her—gave away

his sister—because she

was his to give—to a habit

of nameless nuns.

My IUD looks like the cross

stitched blue into black,

the habit of the Antonines,

made not in the image of God

but of Saint Anthony, his holy

cloak with the crux commissa.

I like to imagine her—the sister—

fingering the virgins, a crucifix

pinched between pad and nail

that she pushes past cervix, talking

of pleasure, of pain, saying: This

is the cross that will save you.

KATHRYN KYSAR

MY IDENTITIES

I am an albatross, a Gideon bible, a fleeting glimpse

of a crow looking for roadkill at dusk. I am solid mass.

I am gaseous fluids. I am soft, soft flesh. I sip my tea

from my porcelain cup. Two cups, maybe three. I am

the Encyclopedia Britannica moldering in your attic,

a feeling of loss, a yearning, an emptiness, a rumbling

deep. I am that last clump of dirty snow. I am the dog

foraging behind the garage, your unused dental floss,

not the neatly packaged rolls at the grocery store

entrance, wrapped in plastic and so strangely sweet.

I’m the shadowy park bench in the fading orange light.

I am melting ice, the silence of