The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Lisa Cheby’s “Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

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Love Lesson #7 from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The body is an honest animal.
But whose should I believe,

                                yours or mine?

                                                            Want a taste?

The pleasure of eating becomes a sin
when someone fears

                               they’re just sinners,
                               or you are sin:

what marinade of tears and love and joy
          did your thighs and heart, liver and wings
                               wade through
                                        to get to me?

                   What pool has steeped the body of you
                               so that the body of me
                                            craves you inside?

Why can I not want the simple completeness
          of beans and rice or the clarity
                          of chicken soup, the fullness

of sag paneer at Bollywood
         or the comfort of paprikas
                         from my mother’s pot?

And how does evil taste?                             A little bit chalky.

Why can we not be as easy as licks
        of pistachio ice cream churned
                         from rosewater and milk?

This selection comes from Lisa Cheby’s Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, available from Dancing Girl Press. Purchase your copy here!

Lisa Cheby is a writer and a librarian in a public high school in Los Angeles, CA. She earned an MFA from Antioch, is an MLIS candidate at San Jose State University, and is the poetry editor for Annotation Nation.   Her poems and reviews have appeared in various journals including The Rumpus, Eclipse, The Mom Egg, The Citron Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Tidal Basin Review and A cappella Zoo and in the anthologies Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Book and The Burden of Light: Poems on Illness and Loss. Her first book, Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is available from Dancing Girl Press.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of three poetry collections, As We Refer to Our Bodies (2013, 8th House), Temporary Champions (2014, Main Street Rag), and Not For Art For Prayer (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. He is also a founding editor of Ovenbird Poetry and AltOhio. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

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