Our Pitcher Plant
Jalina Mhyana

The bulbous pouches are heavy with poison-water.
I caress them as I talk on the phone, stir the spaghetti.
I can cup them, tug them like the bottoms of earlobes
where the hairs grow slight and downy.

I’m tempted to slip a finger inside one, from the top,
where the flies enter. If I had the nerve, how
slowly would it digest me, is that what men
are afraid of, the succubus, vaginas with teeth?

Would I have the courage to slide one along my thigh,
feel its weight between them, imagine
it releasing its poison over me, telling me it’s hungry,
I’m delicious.

The pitcher plant is hermaphroditic, appeals
to my duality, I’d wear them woven
around my neck, hanging in cleavage, thrown
over my shoulders like hair when I laugh.

Each would hold a different liquor. Just flip
the coin-sized lids and squeeze, squeeze that sac
until it’s all in my throat, all of it.

My husband has nightmares about it, while I fantasize.
In his dreams the plant is an intelligence,
a menacing energy in our house. Wiser, more abundant
scrotum mocking his dumb ones.

The lurking sensual energy, how he walks in
to find me resting the curve of it on closed lips.

First published in Ink Pot