Secret Menu

By Kathryn E. McGee

I have sex in a Taco Bell
in a lucid dream, or is this
reality: tostada-spread
delicately pouring hot sauce on
suction cups meant for licking

the booth is hard and orange

unpeeled, familiar floor

hometown franchise, my
high school crush replaced
by a tentacle-dream of a mexican
pizza (thank you, by the way, for
bringing that back to me)

tendril-arms curl with come-
here fingers, cinnamon twists
twisting inside me
shredded cheese, seasoned beef
moaning, refried beans
erupting

drive thru me

involuntary

tabletop sticky, salty
root beer spilling, mopping

exhale

the youthfulness of this
existence, the ice cube clink I
remember it being
my pleasure unearthed in this
plastic fantasy, the
cephalopod of centuries

remolding, reforming in a vase
of hip-curving artistry on the
precipice of falling, breaking

not now

don’t

wake

me

---

Kathryn E. McGee’s stories and poetry have appeared in The Amber Waves of Autumn, Kelp Journal, Chromophobia, Ladies of the Fright, Lit Angeles, and the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase Vols. IV and XI. She is the author of the chapbook, Mondays Are for Meat, and is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association. She manages the MFA Program in Creative Writing at UC Riverside Palm Desert. For more information, please visit http://www.kathrynemcgee.com.