Poetry by Hunter Hodkinson

Abe Bingham CC




In The Hot Tub With Briana, The Girl Everyone Called “Slow”, Myrtle Beach 2008

At the age when cursing is the most 
coveted form of language she 
teaches me how to say fuck. 

I make fun of the way she walks
and laugh when her sister tells 
stories of her toilet bowl birth. 

I do not come from good people. 
I come from people who ridicule 
the person I came out to be. 

I beg Her to hold me under the
violent bubbles with her foot to 
prove that I can hold my breath 

longer than a minute. I’m just too 
small. I float right back up. Scrape 
my fingers against the cement sides. 

The next morning she’s still in the hot tub. 
When we check out I ask, where's Briana? 
Every one points to where the pool is. 

She’s still there, my poetry begins as a little robin's egg beneath her tongue. 



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Hunter Hodkinson (he/they) is an Appalachian poet hiking the writer's path outside the world of academia. They are currently an Event Assistant at Brooklyn Poets. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in december, Dream Boy Book Club, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, Artistic Tribe NYC and Samfiftyfour. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.