One day an orgasm decides to move to Spain

to leave this country behind and reinvent herself in another landscape and language, but she can’t figure out how to be an orgasm is Spanish. Her travel guide speaks only of el orgasmo. Do the Spanish not know la orgasma? And why not? After all, cats are both el gato and la gata, and they even have little gatitos, so shouldn’t orgasms come in both genders? And have little orgasmitos? 

Reading a little further, she wonders if an orgasm is simply there in Spain, as in: Hay la orgasma. No verb necessary. She likes that idea. The simplicity that she, the orgasm, could merely exist. She pictures a curtain opening to applause as she steps into the spotlight and takes a bow, her red hair sweeping the floor. 

But then she wonders, how did she get there? Was she had by another, as in English? Tuvo una orgasma? She’s so tired of being had. Why can’t she simply be? But what form of to be would she be? Ser or estar? She thinks, ser. She tries it out as soon as she arrives in the airport in Madrid. Hola, she announces, Yo soy la orgasma. The people turn away. Some even break into a run, their suitcase wheels squealing behind them.  

How lonely she feels then. Eavesdropping on passersby, she hears one say, Estoy muerto. In speaking of death, she realizes, one uses the verb, estar. Death, it turns out, is an ongoing condition in Spain. If death is ongoing, then surely the orgasm is too—both of them being the all-too familiar, uninvited guests in the backs of people’s minds. Just thinking of this, the orgasm grows sad. Estoy triste, she sighs. How lovely that sounds. Triste.  Like a tree of stars. 

Note: This poem was accepted for inclusion by Michael Martone for the Best Microfiction 2020.

BIO: Nin Andrews' next collection of poems, The Last Orgasm, is forthcoming from Etruscan Press.