Erythroxylon Coca
BY FRANZISKA HOFHANSEL.
When the conquistadors first
established their regime based on mit'a
meaning forced labor they banned
coca leaves, naming them agents
of the devil. When they discovered
the Incas had less energy
without them meaning less
energy for working the mines
they legalized coca then
commodified it meaning
to be a good worker
is to find yourself in a dream
that is not your own. You
see a face in the mirror, someone
points, says, That's you.
Eulogy for a Cockroach Infestation
BY FRANZISKA HOFHANSEL.
Three blocks away from the train station
in Naples, Italy, a woman tries to buy cocaine, gets
robbed instead. They grab her rhinestone-
studded purse and run. I think there's a Disney
princess on it but I can't tell who. Someone offers us
some in an alleyway on the way
to a restaurant with a Michelin star.
I have to think about it. I know in my heart
I spent too much money on cleaning supplies
last month, after I saw a cockroach
the size of an Ikea lamp. Not
the big ones in the office section
obviously but if you take a left
at the entrance they have those little
lights—I think they're meant to be stuck
inside something. I remember
I was not the one to kill it--
I said that was a boy's job. Instead I disposed
of the body, still
breathing, twitching, capable
of all manner of movement.
I wanted to love him
wanted to be other
than what I am, the violence I introduce
to the world—I fester
with incongruence, cover the walls
in poison and yet nothing
is enough and the bugs
watch me, feed on whatever
it is I have left behind.
Franziska Hofhansel is a poet and fiction writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She completed her MFA in fiction at the University of Montana, where she was the recipient of a Truman Capote Fellowship. Her work can be found in Dead Mall Press, Gone Lawn, Prolit, and elsewhere. Instagram: @cyanide.meinhof.