There is no known root for how the word cum
came to mean what it does. But imagine
if you could stitch a lineage back to the Latin
cum meaning to step. Hence: movement.
Hence: a destination. The body moving,
perhaps dancing, toward a kind of end.
Vanishing point of flesh—trembling tongue
-fucked apocalyptic. Apocalypsis. A veil
shifted & what awaits beneath. A rose
by any other given name could still
draw blood if it wanted. But shit, turns out
there’s no emoji for a rubber dick
sat heavy on the tongue. Go figure. I can
still feel it twitch. Hold you in my mouth
spit slick apocrypha. Sweet faggot magic
the way we speak organs out of their
Christian names—lick cock to clit, bruise
breast to flattened chest, bury knuckles inside
a redrafted anatomy. Sucked finger shudder. Lust
-hot alchemy. Holy, how even the air becomes
wind when moving. Holy, how you fuck me
by my one unburied name. & when I tell you
how beautiful you are, you riot-laughter,
kiss me & call me a dyke. Your smile arrives,
day-bright, unburdens the slur of all its blood.
Originally published in Ninth Letter. Copyright © 2021 by torrin a. greathouse. Used with the permission of the author