A man and a woman live in a house. On her birthday he presents her with the Complete Oxford Dictionary. It looks like a Bible. There are so many words she needs a magnifying glass to read them. Am I folliculated? Am I a sac, or a small secretory cavity filling myself with the litter of others? The woman laughs with her wavy auburn hair. Turns to her husband, What do you think? He has his head stuck in a screen of small letters. Check this out, Bolt just won the 200m. Wow! What is it about those Jamaicans? Those Jamaicans? They can run, boy, they can run. The woman returns to her Bible, still open in the F’s. Shall we, as she runs her finger down, fornicate? Oh no, but we can’t—we’re married. Arching to wrap a finger around his hair, she asks, what about a fondle, a fellatio, a fuck? Bolt takes the gold in 19.32 seconds. First man to hold both Olympic sprint titles. She pulls her finger out, flips the book over. Well that’s that.
Kirsten Le Harivel
Kirsten Le Harivel is a poet, traveller and youth development worker living on the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand. She has ties to Scotland, England, France and India. Her work has been published in blackmail press and the 4th Floor Literary Journal. She is a member of the Conversations Across Borders Project.
Kirsten Le Harivel's website »