Fancy Girl. Jasen Boone's Sousa
the apartment next door cursed
for two hours, made-up
for longer.
Became nauseous, smell
of curry floating, Indian
couple down the hall.
Heard rats run
through walls
behind my headboard,
last night’s dream,
today’s reality.
I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES
I don’t know how many times
I have looked out my window and seen
a street lamp and mistaken it
for the sun.
I don’t know how many times
I have looked out my window and seen
red and blue flashing lights
and thought they were coming for me.
I don’t know how many times
I have looked out my window and seen
cigarette ashes disappear into the sidewalk
and thought it was magic.
I don’t know how many times
I have looked out my window and seen
the blinking lights of a departing plane
and wished I was on it.
LOOKING GLASS
A boy punched
Maddy in the face
at school today.
Gave her a black eye.
I feel like
I am looking
in a mirror.
A broken mirror.
A spotted mirror
that gets smudged,
spit on and fogged
up by boys
who are no longer able
to see their
own reflection.
At some point boys
look in mirrors
and don’t see themselves,
don’t see girls anymore.
They see objects. They see things
which they don’t think are human.
They think it’s cool
to draw their initials
on our foggy skin.
I try to wipe away
the fog, the bruise,
but it doesn’t go away.
It won’t go away.
I have to get Maddy
away from here before the skin
on her mirror is broken
like mine.
PLAYING WITH A PRINCESS
Maddy tells me about a friend’s house
she went to visit after school in Lexington.
“Mommy, you wouldn’t believe it,
it was like a palace! It had shiny floors,
a huge back yard,
a pool,
and even an awesome dog!
You should have seen her room!
She had a wicked awesome computer
and a closet full of princess clothes!”
I feel like a piece of shit mother
and immediately place
a copy of the Yellow Pages
under the broken leg post on her bed
so her dreams won’t slant.
REPLACEMENT DREAMS
When you have a kid
dreams are replaced
by dirty diapers.
When you do have time
to dream, you usually
get woken up by crying,
sometimes your own tears,
sometimes tears of your child.
All of my dreams got pushed
to the backseat, next
to the car seat.
Things like being the first
person in my family
to go to college.
To be the one who finally
gets off public housing and food stamps.
To be the one who doesn’t
grow up and be a burnout.
To be something,
or at least be seen
as something.
My dreams have the best
chance of coming true now
through Maddy.
I dream she can have a real life,
and not whatever this thing is that I’m living.
A NUMBER’S GAME
Money is not easy
to come by. I wonder
what having the lights
on for the entire month would be like.
How hard could it be?
Guys do it all the time right?
That hit and run stuff. I just
need to leave my feelings at home.
I just need to think more like a guy
like my father did
with me
and not have love be part of sex.
I could stack up the
money
faster, get Maddy
out of the projects, out of Somerville.
It’s just sex, right?
Jobs are hard to come by these days.
I would be stupid if I didn’t at least try.
I WON’T MISS YOU, SLUMERVILLE
I’m