"Trick Grammar" by Alison Heron Hruby

after the song “Pink Venom” by BLACKPINK

Thick edge of paradox

no other appeal

to sex

quite as persuasive:

four women sing syllepsis, steam smooth,

and

break your brain.

This is not a game, but

Fun

making fun

make fun

in a Fun Factory.

I recognize the play from womanhood, the expertise of

a phrase tangled in a wrench, turning

a careful

wild

sequence.

Listening to the song,

I think, what am I allowed?

What can I take, am I too thread-stripped

a different woman now, but

the syntax I know:

every drop in the beat a dare –

(like a comma)

mark a rest,

then double down.

Alison Heron Hruby is an associate professor of English education at Morehead State University, where she teaches courses on adolescent literacy and directs the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. She completed the AWP W2W program this past summer in poetry as Amorak Huey's mentee and is new to submitting poems for publication.