This month we offer a cause so indulgent it alters the brain chemistry. Next month we
cloak
Submission guidelines can be found here.
NASCAR Anti-Christ
I hope he gives me the speed
to believe in him. Better than biblical
literalism, better than that dull, anxious
pull of one body toward another, better
than collective prayer. There is a track of oil
running down the small of his back, bleeding
from the nape of his neck. He is filthy, vehicular
manslaughter left in hives across his chest,
skidding over his sternum. Born again, christened
babe from a smoker’s booth filled with Asthmador
cigarettes – he breathes an impossible breath,
bottled belladonna staining his cheeks while his ribs
rise in defiant heft, peccable inhales, light beer
jeers gurgled, drowned out by revving engines.
I want him to give me the bending of metal,
that satanic practice of passing a slew of cars,
clipping them into the oncoming barricade,
landing riders in kegs of Busch, or jettisoning
them from windshields onto the blacktop, prone,
prostrated, paralyzed. I need to know I get to die
for a cause so indulgent it alters the brain chemistry
of non-believers while I drive under a new influence.
Rose Jenny is a trans poet/playwright based in Tennessee. She is the recipient of the 2025 Bennett Nieberg Transpoetic Broadside Prize from Gasher Press. Her chapbook, My Apocrypha, is available through Bottlecap Press. Rose’s other selected poems are published in Foglifter Journal, SWWIM Every Day, Oroboro Literary Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. A Lambda Literary Fellow, her writing has received additional support from Tin House, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Free Nashville Poetry Library, among others. When she isn’t writing, Rose is an avid baker and commander of goblins. All her work can be found at rosejenny.com.
This month we offer a cause so indulgent it alters the brain chemistry. Next month we
cloak
Submission guidelines can be found here.
NASCAR Anti-Christ
I hope he gives me the speed
to believe in him. Better than biblical
literalism, better than that dull, anxious
pull of one body toward another, better
than collective prayer. There is a track of oil
running down the small of his back, bleeding
from the nape of his neck. He is filthy, vehicular
manslaughter left in hives across his chest,
skidding over his sternum. Born again, christened
babe from a smoker’s booth filled with Asthmador
cigarettes – he breathes an impossible breath,
bottled belladonna staining his cheeks while his ribs
rise in defiant heft, peccable inhales, light beer
jeers gurgled, drowned out by revving engines.
I want him to give me the bending of metal,
that satanic practice of passing a slew of cars,
clipping them into the oncoming barricade,
landing riders in kegs of Busch, or jettisoning
them from windshields onto the blacktop, prone,
prostrated, paralyzed. I need to know I get to die
for a cause so indulgent it alters the brain chemistry
of non-believers while I drive under a new influence.
Rose Jenny is a trans poet/playwright based in Tennessee. She is the recipient of the 2025 Bennett Nieberg Transpoetic Broadside Prize from Gasher Press. Her chapbook, My Apocrypha, is available through Bottlecap Press. Rose’s other selected poems are published in Foglifter Journal, SWWIM Every Day, Oroboro Literary Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. A Lambda Literary Fellow, her writing has received additional support from Tin House, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Free Nashville Poetry Library, among others. When she isn’t writing, Rose is an avid baker and commander of goblins. All her work can be found at rosejenny.com.
Sign up to receive a new issue of Rough Cut Press the first week of each month.
We will never share your contact information without explicit permission.