MiPo Best of the Poetry Board 2003

Sarah Wilson

Angolina Seeks a Room Mate

Her dream was to find a slim love-handled man,
the kind with hard bones and a tendency to flee

from time to time:
something she called space.

She thought this is the stuff you send off
to be posted in personal ad columns.



  Happy SWF looking for a change, please write.

  Need for a man maintaining a pedestal quality,

  able to wear tight jeans with glacier cool,

  eyes that dance in the company of others,

  willing to live near train tracks, leaving past.

  Must pay rent to share morning sounds

  and a dog howling to be set free at dawn.

  The view - Crepe myrtles catch fire each spring 

  and the blackbird outside the window always sings.

The part she couldn’t write was
how she’d liked to pose in her red garters,

hands on her thighs, cat-shaped glasses,
higher than bridged crossing, squinting at sun,

recently released from the first stretch she’d known,
or how she was used to dangerous men.

Her father was one to toss kittens tied up
burlap style into rapidly running rivers,

after he’d caressed the rabid humping hounds,
and thrown chicken blood into trees,

teaching them how to track raccoons with ill-treated manners.
She remembered her fear of him coming home.

His neck sucked purple as her prescription-dry lips
tried holding back the names of trashy women he banged.

No, she wanted a man she could have babies by,
beautiful babies with Christian names knowing her.

Motherly ways hidden under fucked-over covers;
married.

Third Edition ~Editors: Mia, T. Birch, PJ Nights and Kathryn Koromilas ~