OR

When I mop

I think so much 

grime and pastness 

is leaving us.

Everyone can read minds

it doesn’t mean they want to.

I love the things 

I should despise

but don’t.

I love when you do

what you shouldn’t do

to the internet.

You think I’m easy

I’m not

This is just for you.

You think I talk on the phone

all day

no

just to you.

You act like I walk around 

rubbing my pussy 

on lampposts 

and stuff

You know

the word WHORE

contains the word OR

like she’s deciding

which god

is good

or is god

good.

I love how you’re like paradise

but not really

I love how I keep being 

here 

it’s dreadful

incred-

ible.

I love the way your tshirt smells

I wanna take it 

to the Hamptons

just me 

and it.

but I cant cause that is crazy

but I will cause I am crazy

just wide open.

like when I drink goat milk

I feel it

or when I buy a weird shoe

that takes me out

for a walk

when the moon isn’t weird

but I am

when the night 

is fast

and I know

what you want

to be asked

when I just lie there

I feel it

warming

the door

whore.

MY BABY

I heard about a woman 

who was naked 

with her naked baby.

They were naked together

and she didn’t care 

when her mother passed

through the room 

in judgment.

She didn’t care because 

she was just so happy

to be with her baby

and to be naked.

I didn’t think I would want a baby

but I started to.

After hearing about the woman 

her gentle madness.

So I opened my vagina 

really wide and 

a little horse came out.

When my husband came home

I was lying naked on the bed

with the little sticky horse.

I had a guilty smile on my face.

My husband was alarmed.

We had kind of made a pact 

not to have babies.

Famously I said

the only thing 

coming out of me 

in this life

would be shit.

But the little horse was 

hairless and raw like an organ 

and I was in love.

I had never been in love.

I said this is the only baby I could love

one that is not like me.

And my husband began to stroke the horse

who was nursing me brutally.

Smoke rose 

over my baby and

I was glittering 

in the drug state

to be god 

in the small grove

My husband knew

I was not the same

wife.

If I was holding both my husband and the horse

over the edge of a building 

and had to drop one

I would not drop the horse.

I was thinking this and my husband must’ve 

heard me thinking

the way his face changed.

Every day I was this new person

Every day I decided not to kill the horse

Every day was the same

the same

and different too

microscopically

each hair grew

Each hair had a penny shine

and the day was fat

with a love 

like gravy

Every day the sun poured over the horse

and he stirred

chewing the blanket

Every day was the same

and different

the sun 

the horse 

the body was a church and I was singing

I was so happy

ecstatic

I was naked in the gray building

the well 

of pennies and echoes

dark bugs lived there

I didn’t care 

I didn’t know I could be like this.

I didn’t know I could love a stranger.

One who is not like me.

But I do.

It could only be now.

Today.

You.

LEOPOLDINE CORE was born and raised in Manhattan. Her poems and fiction have appeared in Apology, Open City, The Literarian, The Brooklyn Rail, Big Lucks and elsewhere. Her chapbook "Young Friend" was published by Perfect Lovers Press. Her first full-length book is forthcoming from Coconut Books.