Zoey Morris, A Performance of My Ecstasy
Kentucky-based poet Zoey Morris brings us a sensual, long-form sub-aquatic theatrical fantasy in A Performance of My Ecstasy. The work meditates on the performativity of sex using the author’s own experiences as a queer sex worker. The seductive fluidity of these lines break through the fourth wall of the play, thrusting the reader beyond mere voyeur: here, we bear witness to the too-rarely-explored agency and intimacy of transactional sex.
This chapbook is printed on white paper with cardstock cover lovingly designed and typeset by Dani Spinosa.
Sample Poem
KENTUCKY WILDLIFE as THE REASON I CAN’T HAVE SEX ANYMORE
some sort of woman, I am: laying open
in greenfield,
waiting for animal mouths to wrap
my honey & suckle
a senseless girlthing from my bones.
Kentucky names me:
Precious / Baby / Love of my Life / Sweetheart / Darling /
Good Girl / Dumb Slut / Dyke / Cam Whore / Rape Bait
I trace these words beneath my uniform with a red marker
like the Good Girl I am. I snap pictures in my mom’s bathroom mirror before
I leave for work:
toes curled around the edge of the toilet seat,
contorted and held in ten different positions
for my sugar-daddy-fish.
some sort of woman, I am: begging
to be found
& sexed into the southern-slut
Hometown has grown me to be.