the minnesota review is pleased to feature each of our nominees for the 2012 Pushcart Prize in the coming weeks. This week we are excited to bring you Christa Romanosky‘s “Gutter.” Please check back next week for more on our nominees and their work.
Gutter
I’ve had it with holy. Relying on chai latte, negotiating
curves of lip, fad gap. I could not change the future
so I got very naked, learned early: the only thing I fetch
is godless. They want more, pour
down eggs, herb, say everything is better aged. Braille
corn fields, ruined underwear. With tits I can never
locate all my ribs. I make late night phone calls
Where are you!? I say. They are beneath piles
of childhood, sifting through manuscript
and Catholic veneer, mid-drift into pop psychology
and a drag of wildlife slag. There ought to be laws
against penalty. Body clerestory, tiny industry. I fume
with the best of them. Whole cities rise up from sewer,
electric mucus. Men brooming the animals, returning
lunch trays, tossing maxi pads to public girls
and saying, “come.” All of it without receipt.
“Gutter” was first published in issue 79 (Fall 2012) of the minnesota review. Christa Romanosky is a Pittsburgh, PA native. She received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2011. She has been published in Mid-American Review, Colorado Review, The Kenyon Review Online and elsewhere. She taught the course “Gaga for Gaga; Sex, Identity, and Gender,” and undergraduate poetry at the University of Virginia. Romanosky currently lives on a ranch in South Dakota. You can read “Gutter” or any of our other Pushcart nominees by accessing our online archive at Duke University Press, available here.
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