Jenny Johnson
Fisting Party
It was your birthday.
In lieu of candles,
you’d asked for fists.
As many hands as years.
So we gathered
strangers with gloves on
and started by steadying
what the sling swiveling
by chains couldn’t brace,
hands supporting shoulders,
hands grasping thighs.
Above us the matte black empty
of the warehouse ceiling
a distant limit.
We were all watching you.
We also watched
each other taking our turns.
Someone held the squirt bottle
of lube and pumped.
The top I most admired,
who’d shoved me down
on a floor months before,
instructed you to exhale.
My smaller hand was seventh.
Knowing some holes
buckle hardest between peaks,
I opted not to give you all.
I fucked you roughest
with my eyes.
Then I stepped aside
to watch you take another,
but reached to squeeze
one socked foot
between my palms
to feel the strength of
your full arch pressing back.
It was your birthday
and you wanted to feel
full and empty;
this I understood.
Jenny Johnson reads “Fisting Party”
Jenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books). Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, BOMB Magazine, and The New York Times. Her honors include a Hodder Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, and a Whiting Award. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at West Virginia University, and she is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop.