“Killer of Sheep”: Bloody Fucking Hell (Excerpt)

Billie Holiday sang in a film

A woman danced with a man
to her voice

Distant at first, she pulled closer
to him
tighter on him
digging her fingers into his back
nails pressing desperate
familiar
kind

Although broken
by responsibility
and the job he’d been dealt
he’d dealt himself
skinning sheep for tear drops
that didn’t fix rooftops
when the Devil got his way
and it look like that day…it’d fo sho rain

She clawed into his coffee skin
as her vexed lips kissed his
collar bone
his shoulder blade

her thighs wrapping tighter around
his leg

oh billy holiday sang

and I thought of you, my friend

thought about how whole I would be
if you and I were black
dancing slow
pulling close in the 70s

but I am not a man
and you are not my woman

and the killer of sheep is
just a movie

and I am not sure
if the singer was even billie holiday.

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“Bloody Fucking Hell” by Vanessa Libertad Garcia is a collection of poetry and essays that chronicle the splendor, torture, and confusion she experienced by a lesbian falling in love with various ” straight” women. The book takes an in-depth look at these intimate, rather distinct, relationships and explores where feminine identity, classifications of love, and roles in friendship blur in soul splitting ways.

The Book | Read “The B Job” Excerpt | About the Author