top of page

"I Only Want Him When He Smells Like Whiskey & Camels"...by Kait Quinn



I ONLY WANT HIM WHEN HE SMELLS LIKE WHISKEY & CAMELS


When he's just steel plucked

new calluses into his fingers.


I want to jar every chord that blooms

into the next room on only


neurons, spit, and calcium. I can't get

enough of it. I wanna fuck him


to the reverb. Conduct his symphony.

Bud from the demise. I wanna sip soft


morning light from his pale

champagne eyelids. Lick the sleep


from his poppy fields. It makes me so moonlit

forgetful, daffodil laughter dripping


pink and canary from my blackberry

winter lips. I only want


him in hollowed halls, when he's

void-shaped and I'm plasma


untouchable. I'm a drunk, and he's a wet

glass of gin. We fit together in ways I don't


think other people ever have.

What a beautiful morning


to leave on the porch bulb, light a

cigarette, pour his ghost a glass,


and flourish in fitful lunacy.



WHAT THE AFTERMATH MIGHT HAVE LOOKED LIKE HAD I NOT STEPPED OUT OF THAT CAB


In this poem, the cab pulls up

to the Holiday Inn. The Australian

gets out, finds an American

woman who will actually fuck him.

The girl uses her mouth,

tells the driver, Keep going.

The groom from the second-floor

bachelor party sleeps alone

the night before his wedding,

dick flaccid, hands statuesque.

The girl, safely home, sheds

her white and marigold dress

to moonlight instead of up

against morning's brash knuckles.

She folds it into the trash with

the last handful of her adulterous

ex's guitar picks, hazel

clippings—not because they are

spoiled. She has simply

outgrown them. This is the poem

where she does not wilt in the end.

She blossoms helianthus

from her chasmed canary throat.




Kait Quinn (she/her) was born with salt in her wounds. She flushes the sting of living by writing poetry. Her work has appeared in Reed Magazine, Last Leaves Magazine, Crosswinds Poetry, Chestnut Review, and others. By day, Kait is a legal assistant living in Minneapolis with her partner, their regal cat (Spart), and their very polite Aussie mix (Jesse).

Comments


bottom of page