Joe Bishop
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Vacancy
This grand hotel has lost its head
and the maids march on strike
for hazard pay
circling parking-lot
sinkholes
Anarchy overthrew
the maître d’
Light & Power
cut lights and power
The star rating
slips by the hour
Baroque wallpaper
peels like stage makeup
Chef pisses
in the soup du jour
His duck a l’orange
is roadkill
Bartender shakes
a molotov cocktail
charming as a horror show
and the drained lifeguard drowns
on Cristal
in his elevated chair
Nevertheless his cum
the sommelier pairs with a rosé
and the bellhop shines
a white neon grin
flashes a brass chastity cage
Thrusting go-go boys
strip from the reception desk
till nothing is left to tease
Chandelier begs for a hung acrobat
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Conditional
If I grab a knife in one hand
but hold a fork in the other
will you know my role
is to feed you
a slice of shepherd’s pie
and if the smoke detector
screeches beyond
a steel whistle
will you stay seated
while I turn down the knob
sizzling your over-hard eggs
and will you still stay seated
while I teeter on a stool
dish towel in hand
fanning the noisemaker
and provided I find shelter
in the smell of your crevices
and you let me take a stab
at accommodating
all of your presence in
rooms beyond
the kitchen and clean up after
any spillage
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Vers
In response to your wiseguy aunt ballsy enough to ask which one of us operates the gears on the crane and who can back up forklifts beep-beep-beep and who has kitchen issues in his forties and which one knows his way around steamy pots of bubbly chowder and who stirs slowly and will let it simmer and who can’t stop drinking milk straight out of the carton and who lets the lobsters go boiling to heaven and who will add the bay leaf to peasoup and who loves the tickling vibrator surging from his jackhammer tearing pavement and who’s cockeyed with a sore collarbone and who pries the crowbar-smile afterglow and who mixes with an electric mixer and who mixes with the cement mixer and which one is the bulldozer and who’s his kitchen queen
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Joe Bishop (he/him) is the author of a collection of poetry, Indie Rock (University of Alberta Press, 2023). His work has appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review, NonBinary Review, and The Metaworker, among other journals. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada with his partner, Jim.
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Posted in Pride: June '26 and tagged in #boudin, #poetry, Poetry