August 21, 2008
QUEEN OF CUPS
| MICHELLE MUENZLER |
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She drinks too much, this queen. Wine spills between her lips, gushes from between her legs. At her feet, two carp gasp. A third strains for shore.
When you are her, the stars drizzle overhead. Your shots of whiskey become a blur, and the youths gyrate against your thighs in a tangled clump of come-ons. Your little fish, you call them, your golden carp, and drown in shots until your throat is numb. Familiar, yes?
But the gray light of morning is harsh unfiltered by the skim of algae. You know it is coming. I told you an hour before. One last song, you say, and suck the deejay’s lips. And another. And another. Until your skin dries out, turns to brittle gold, and the music dies in an accordion wail and the youths cry at that first fragile scale crusting your cheek. That clammy glint bulging in your eye.
So here you are again, my little fish, all forgotten but the taste of man clinging to your flesh. It’s a horned moon suckling the stars tonight. A moon for sweat slipping on soft skin, for hungry mouths gnawing at the hollows of young necks. What say you then, my golden carp—legs again? Or will one of your sisters dance for me instead?
Michelle Muenzler has been caught sneaking behind the wainscot before, and the punishment is always the same. More stories! When not skulking, she is either writing or torturing herself about not writing, sometimes both. In addition to here, her work can be found in Renard’s Menagerie and soon in Shroud Magazine, Coyote Wild, and Electric Velocipede.