I don’t know you but

I know you. You are who

I talk to when I talk to

the bathroom mirror,

peer through the well-lighted

windows past midnight,

or throw a crystal

into the shimmering

East River. Because

I am tired of being

alone. Tortured daughter

of a powerful sorcerer.

Little girl whipping boy.

How gracefully

I took my rapings with

every lance and glare

of the camera.

I turned noisily red,

hid my face and faced

the camera again.

Aquarius. Poetess.

Rising lioness. Left-handed

redhead, born in the year

of the black water dog.

I stood on stages.

Went through phases.

Tried to die and wished

I had never been born.

Fourth grade master forger.

Crooked class president.

Little Ivy League school-

girl. Too good to be bad.

Too bad to be good.

Bare legs in a short

black skirt. Precarious

cocktails on a cocktail

tray. Pinned to the wall.

Squirming away.

Dumpster. Smoke rings.

Little plastic baggie.

Pressure gauge crack pipe.

Suburban Philadelphia.

Jersey Shore. New York.

Interstate. Car crash. 

Stiff. Bookish. Intransigent.

Placing bets. A student 

of the politics

of horse racing. 

A doctor of philosophy. 

Experimental poetry.

Thick with the gypsies

& searching the world over:

Paris, Istanbul, Athens,

a train in the Balkans,

everyday on the subway,

because all I want is to be

cast out of Eden

with you. Maybe one day,

I’ll turn a corner and see you

on Grand Concourse

at the Laundromat

in the kitchen in

the afternoon light.

Then Venus will transit

the sun. We will be one.

Copyright 2017 | Pet Murmur

Photo credit: Emily Dryden