So, God is like Leopold Sacher-Masoch

By: Holly Eva Allen

I knock over one of those

saccharine, smiling cereal faces

and the box tumbles down

the aisle into the

February air.

So, then I say it

and my aunt replies with

“God doesn’t appreciate

his name being used in vain.”,

her George-Creel-tongue eager blubbering,

her Rex-Stout-teeth critical-white.

So, God is like Leopold von Sacher-Masoch,

I think in my

chapel-lobe of happy echoes

where Leopold goes

all red in the face over

“masochism”

even as his detestable darlings play

master and slave on the page for

any willing eye. I’m

fairly certain this would’ve been a

fine sight for any baleful old

god the testament shunned.

Any god who

made no proclamations about mixed fabrics,

made no certain threats about

golden calves nor sorry saps

unwilling to commit felicitous filicide

for their Father.

So, it’s just the “Venus” then,

I think

as my aunt and I near

the check-out lane,

and not her furs that earn

his devilish scorn.

Not the stygian wolves,

the sacrificial ermines,

who saw two summers

if they were lucky

or if fur coats just weren’t in fashion

that year.

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Holly Eva Allen is a writer currently living in California. Her work has been previously published in magazines and sites such as Funicular, Peculiar, Sand Hills, and Farside Review. She is the co-EIC for Foothill Journal and EIC for Horned Things. She is currently working on an English degree at Claremont Graduate University. You can find her work at hollyevaallen.wordpress.com or follow her on Twitter @ hollyevaallen.