Poetry by John Davis

Gluttony is the cousin no one discusses
without a finger down their throat
to york up any blood relation with her.
Nicknamed Ton, she bludgeons anyone
who impedes her way at a pastry shop
with a special taste for German Chocolate Cake,
licks the frosting with her cobra-flicking tongue,
munches cream-filled donuts. Who hasn’t been
strung-out on snickerdoodle cookies when reading
John Asberry or added extra scoops of mint ice cream
when plowing through A Pilgrim’s Process.
It’s as bad as someone mentioning ideology
outside Espresso Coffee Shop, your blood pressure
thumping 195. Lust shuffles in front of you.
That bust on Lust—is it too early for Greed
to trust his pick-up line? Words belittle me
when I’m filling out the Ancestry Questionnaire.
I expect they do the same for you when you
own up to your cousin in Muncy, the lazy-ass Sloth.
Don’t have to cough when you say her name.
But Grace. I once dated Grace, so calm, but I knew
she pocketed Envy in her purse. I could see Wrath
wiggling under her dress. Helluva mess trying to keep
your poise on pointe. However big the pain of Pride
I can take it. I imagine cousins as mannequins.
They’re all relative, all in the family. Pray for them.

John Davis is a polio survivor and the author of two collections: Gigs, Guard the Dead and a chapbook, The Reservist. His work has appeared recently in DMQ Review, Iron Horse Literary Review and Terrain.org. He lives on an island in the Salish Sea and moonlights in blues and rock ‘n’ roll bands.

Photo by Laura Fuhrman on Unsplash