Laura Madeline Wiseman is the recipient of the 2009 Academy of American Poets Award from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she is a doctoral candidate and teaches English. Her second chapbook, Ghost Girl, is forthcoming from Pudding House. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Feminist Studies, MARGIE, Arts & Letters, and elsewhere. Other awards include the Mari Sandoz Award in fiction, the Will Jumper Award in poetry, and five Pushcart Prize nominations. She is co-editor (with Christine Stewart-Nunez) of the forthcoming anthology Women Write Resistance: Poets Fight Gender Violence, (Finishing Line Press).

Like a Honeymoon

My imaginary cock joins Humans Anonymous.
In a back row I slouch in sunglasses, a trench coat
with the collar turned up. The cocks sit in a circle.

Bad coffee percolates by baskets of fake sugar.
Blue smoke obscures wrinkles and sags.
The room wafts the odor of the unattended.

I stiffen when my imaginary cock speaks.
I haven’t had a human in thirty-seven days.
Last night I parked outside the house for an hour.

Imaginary cocks adjust themselves. Some weep.
Others rub sobriety coins. My cock shivers,
It’s because of all of you that I left alone.

Several cocks applaud as my cock reddens.
My fingers quake. I scuttle out of the room
and slump in the car until the meeting ends.

When my cock leaves with another cock,
I drive home with the headlights off
and get into bed with all my clothes on.

I can’t sleep. I pee once every hour.
At 3:33, keys shake the lock. A door opens.