My poodle sighs from an enviable contentment.
I demand a kiss for rent.
She owns this house. She refuses Fiuggi water,
the dish of pasture-raised beef I say I killed
myself to provide. Labor enslaves me
to my animal pleasures. I go full bougie
with buttered plants and sweetbreads, a geisha facial.
I am the beast she thinks I am:
the two-legged dog who does not recognize
herself in this good living.
When I tell her Free! she hesitates, unsure
whether to walk on or return to me.
Rosanna Young Oh is the author of The Corrected Version. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in BOMB Magazine, The Drift, Oxford Poetry, and The Yale Review. Based on Long Island, she currently teaches in the M.F.A. program at the City College of New York, CUNY.
photo by Carolyn Kehler
From September 14-25, in honor of her residency at The Betsy Hotel and our 10th anniversary season, SWWIM Every Day will be featuring a selection of poems curated by Sarah Audsley.
Sarah Audsley is the author of Landlock X (Texas Review Press, 2023). A Korean American adoptee, a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and a member of The Starlings Collective, Audsley lives and works in northern Vermont. She serves as the Writing Program Director at Vermont Studio Center.
We hope you enjoy this special collaboration!