Gin & Bleach (Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature)

"My Reptile"

Little frill d lizard

with your big mouth
and your clutch of egg.
Pure urge iguana
I wanna wanna
wanna heavy pet
in a moist habitat.
Your dewlap licks
down my spine;
your creep yearns,
yearns your crawl,
like a small machine
that you rev and
rev and rev until
the engine floods.

Gin and bleach: two clear liquids aiming for purity, bordering the toxic. Catherine Wing's poems are soaked in her cocktail, mixing doubt, loneliness, rough elbows, and razor focus. It riddles, aiming askew for a straight answer: how do we make our way through this world?