Jonathan Fletcher

My ex said she could give a mean blowjob

but all I could think about was those hours

on penitent knees during Mass, fingers

interlaced like the First Couple’s legs.

And how Luther retired nightly to his cell

of stone, then prostrated himself

on a cold hardness, possibly dreaming

of things he’d never admit to thinking,

possibly waking up to things that monks

dare not speak of. And some claim this

permanently worsened his health, yet

I wonder if Luther would’ve still grown

sick. As I wonder what it’d take for my

mother to not bring up the possibility

of low libido. Or a gay friend to not insist

I’m straight. Or for me to not punish myself

by not speaking up. And, what good,

with so much already beaten

into me, is a scourge or a spunga?

Bio

Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which his debut chapbook, This is My Body, was published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.