ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Krista Cox is a paralegal, associate poetry editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection and Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and the Program Director of Lit Literary Collective, a nonprofit serving her local literary community. Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, Rappahannock Review, Pirene's Fountain, and elsewhere.
Fisher of Women
You're trolling
for a wife. You want to bore
a hole and pull out
salvation. You want someone to
skin and fillet. Someone to replace
the chilled lips of the
bluegill pressed against
the icy line of your
mouth in your
favorite profile picture.
Someone slightly less
slippery. Someone slightly
more alive. I can tell you're a
tender man by the way you
remove the hook.
After my divorce, I spent about five years intermittently exploring the world of online dating. I would be on Tinder or OKCupid for a couple of months until my tolerance for absurdity, abuse, and misogyny had been exhausted, then offline for a few months, then on again. One thing that always fascinated me was men's choices with regard to profile pictures. I live in northern Indiana, which may explain why there are dead animals in so, so many of them — something I find pretty repugnant. One picture really stuck out to me: a man who had his lips actually touching the actual mouth of an actual dead bluegill. That was a level of commitment I had not before seen. It got me thinking about the unfortunate way that dating is often seen as akin to hunting or fishing. There are "plenty of fish in the sea," right? What man doesn't enjoy the "thrill of the hunt" and want to "bag" a hot blonde? And to make it easier, just visit a "meat market!" The first line of this man's profile specified that he was looking for a wife — but not just any wife. He wanted a "godly woman." The title is, thus, a play on Jesus' title as a "fisher of men." The poem explores these themes of fishing, the pursuit of relationships, and religion … hopefully in a way that's at least as amusing as that guy's profile was.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
