Poetry
Blundered hookups summon life
decisions—my couch is strewn
with apparitions, their faces just
beyond sight. They drop their coats
in a heap on my mosaic tile.
I eat the ghost fabric and become
shitty. I make it to the bathroom
even when the lights go out. Ectoplasm
wires my intestine—a ley line turned
against itself. It emits a replacement
for the electric money I blew on a fleet
of empty calories. No matter how long
on the toilet, my gut can’t get any lighter—
I’m starving in my own illumination.
I’d want sympathy if I hadn’t asked
for the formless to appear, but I did.
They’re still here, in fact, wanting
my attention for absolutely nothing.
My favorite of the specters finds me
on my crapper. I couldn’t tell you
what he looks like. A loose buzz
whirs from my abdomen, just beneath
my belly button, knees slightly ajar.
I offer up my borrowed light to halate him.
He ignores me, and fades like the rest.
Leslie McIntosh (all pronouns respectfully used) is currently obsessed with what it means, and doesn’t mean, to be a noun. Leslie’s debut full-length volume of poetry, within-group variance, was selected by Terrance Hayes for the 2025 Changes Book Prize and is available for preorder now from Changes Press. Individual pieces of literary art can be found in Adi Magazine, Foglifter, Indiana Review, Obsidian, POETRY, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.