By Johnny Cate

Featured Art: Still from “feed me stone fruits”, by Zelda Thayer Hansen, a collaborative performance with Isabella DeRose

She’s driving buzzed
but the PSAs call that drunk.
Soft swerve under a gibbous moon
ripe as a white bleb
ready to pop, subs banging
College Dropout. Baby blue
cardigan over a hot pink bra—
call it cotton candy Bubblicious,
messy pony strobing
in the passing streetlights.
Crimson lip’s been her thing
since something like eighth grade,
and in the dash-glow
it’s the deepest red imaginable,
catching the light as she raps
every word to every verse.
This is pretty girl privilege shit,
sweater riding up the small
of her back shit, black
and white rattlesnake boot shit.
If all beauty is truth and truth
beauty, her body’s sola
scriptura—spritzed with
“God is a Woman”, the latest
Ariana Grande eau de parfum.
The right tire grazes the rumble strip:
kiss of death but it’s a butterfly,
a literal vibe, and subtly
the whole car shudders, touched. 

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Johnny cate is a poet, copywriter, and vintage T-shirt collector from Asheville, NC.