I went to the worst of bars / hoping to get / killed. /
but all I could do was to / get drunk / again.
—Charles Bukowski
You can still charm—though these days, it’s minus
the smooth cabernet, velvet wings you once wore
to flit & soar anywhere that called. In a meeting,
you recall the most beautiful cloak, golden shimmer
in blue bottle. Its sparkle jetted you to moon-drenched
nights on tropical beaches, bonfires that never dulled,
night-swimming, blurred whitecaps captured in starlight.
You were a citizen of the water, black skies bulleted by light.
You were masquerade, silenced by so many disguises. Gorgeous
& inviting; lethal. Your silhouette, absorbed by vastness, basking, alone.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 6.
Kirsten Hemmy’s first book of poetry was a Tom Lombardo selection from Press 53. Her work has recently appeared in the Notre Dame Review, Glass, Your Impossible Voice, Killing the Buddha, Pine Row Press, CaKe, Panoply and elsewhere. A Tedx performer and Fulbright fellow, Hemmy currently lives in the Sultanate of Oman where she teaches creative writing.
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