by E.B. Schnepp
The best part of Rocky Horror is when the makeup starts to run
Hair hangs limp, drenched from sweat, from the pool scene,
and tears start to form in stockings. Columbia’s breasts
break free of her corset; everything decays, bleeds
raw at the edges. Frank’n’Furter crying
around a waterlogged smile — are you having a good time
yet? Everyone’s just a little bit in love with everyone else.
And everyone hates everyone else just a little bit too —
do you think Riff-Raff and Magenta mourned Frank’n’Furter?
That they missed the two normies, the erstwhile professor drawn in
to the whole queer affair once they’d taken all that glitter back,
left only a series of incomprehensible hours
they’d never be able to tell anyone else. It had to be so lonely,
to stand on a sterile bridge in lingerie designed more for an orgy
than enacting alien law, the aftermath of an execution
they could only regret despite Eddie.
Despite the witnesses. Lonelier even than Brad and Janet,
who still have to get married; chase promotions,
white picket fences. What else could they do after all they’d seen?
Tasted? No one else could ever understand the way
nothing after could ever hurt quite right again.
From the judge, Richard Blanco:
The best part of Rocky Horror is when the makeup starts to run proves that there is poetry in everything if we look hard enough as this poet does to recast the figurative meaning of that which we think we already know.
Poet E.B. Schnepp received their MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Bowling Green State University. Their work has been featured in Poetry Daily and can be found in Gulf Coast, Nat. Brute, and Iron Horse Review, among others. Their chapbook, Blueberries Stain Like Blood, is out from Bottlecap Press. They currently reside in Chicago.
Artist Josiane Kouagheu (she/her) is a journalist, writer, photographer, painter and poet from Cameroon. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, African Writer Magazine, Kalahari Review, Frontier Poetry, Prairie Schooner, The Nomad review, Apricity Magazine, Al Dente Journal and elsewhere.
Gulf Stream Magazine 