What’s a Boy to Do
by Zoe Contros Kearl
I sought Pleasure and found Pain – Unutterable.
William Blake
Southbound on I81, world rising all around,
Virginia’s hills give way to Tennessee. Wilding carpet
of kudzu, state troopers, three crosses on hilltop
after hilltop. Billboard promises hell, gas station
attendant’s eyes grey linger on my boyish form
two seconds too long. Meets my gaze tilts head
spits onto pavement. All this before, again,
violently. Minimum wage on glass doors:
$2 lower state by state as we drop below
the Mason-Dixon. It would be foolish to drive
through these towns believing there’s a God,
and yet– remember your hands, nape of my neck,
clippers whirring. How I will be shorn
all my life, lamb of something else entirely.
Zoe Contros Kearl is a queer writer and editor raised in Texas now based in Vermont. Writing has been featured in HAD, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Review, Stone of Madness, Tupelo Quarterly, TQR, and elsewhere. ZCK holds an MFA from Columbia University, a BA from New York University’s Gallatin School and currently serves as Managing Editor for American Chordata Magazine.