Kara Lewis

EROTICA FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

Spanked by fate, I slink through days
swathed in leather, unicorn slippers, and your basketball shorts.

I put my hair in pigtails to feel young, waiting
for your tug, or begging

for the butterfly clips in my bangs to fly us away—
but the part down my skull aches like a lesson

in separation. The day a BuzzFeed quiz tells me, You’ll have sex 0 times in 2020,
I buzz my roommate’s head in the sink. I’m scared

to shave mine, because you never know a cranium’s veins
until it hovers bare, bright

as a new universe. I retweet, Burn down this country
and build from its ashes, but I know I’d send you ads for suction vibrators

and crystal butt plugs while everything incinerates
somewhere off-screen. In the thesaurus of sexting, I find penis: the need

to feel full / safe word: syllables your exhale can hold /
bondage: the kind of embrace that makes you gasp like you’re coming

back to life. I fill my head with smut and astrology.
The apocalypse will be low-brow

and carnal. My horoscope reads, Venus is in your fourth house of home
and emotions, so I wear a harness while pruning succulents,

cry into my pillow’s feathered chest, examine each apple
for a soft, hand-shaped bruise.

We get naked on Skype, despite
our mismatched zodiac signs, and I moan your name like for once

I don’t need to know the future.
After, I just want to make you eggs,

like a sunrise is something I can serve up
anytime we want it.