The Other Girls Who Write Wolverine Slash

The other girls who write Wolverine slash are so vanilla
that when they flick the bean, they circle a vanilla

pod with their thumbs. They burrow two fingers into their own
liquid depths to mine what’s marketed in stores as vanilla

extract. They imagine him as a tender lover, a beast tamed
by Jean’s closeness, the smell of her hair with its hints of Venetian

plaster and ash which seem to say: now she burns only for him.
If he’s impatient, it’s only that his needs are vacillating

between tender heart and turgid manhood. He wants her so
bad his claws pop an erection – ten tiny vanguards

of his lust. But Wolverine holds them in. He does that for Her.
His Phoenix. His Red. Growls as he bends her over the vanity,

assumes the missionary position. It’s tragic. Like finding
the bulge in his spandex suit is just molded plastic.

BY DANA KOSTER

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Dana Koster received her MFA from Cornell University, and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Indiana Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Cincinnati Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and More Than Soil More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets, among others. She lives in California’s Central Valley with her husband and young son.