Drowse Note Poem by MARINA GIPPS

No breasts to breed with.
No hair to pull
nor nipple to punish.
I open refrigerator doors
looking for answers in eggs.
Walk threadbare streets
feeling the funerals of handshakes.
Pray with these hands
to the bright invisible one
who created all this misery
with the wave of his own hands.
I tell him to take me
past black clouds and kercheif paper sails,
past tired lids opening the afternoon.

No sleeping to save you
when the bottle is empty
and your mouth is not working
with your shrink
to sing happy songs together
for dead polka dancers who wasted their lives
traveling the midwest in mini-caravans.
God loves those who love themselves.

But who am I
to question the stare of paper,
the murderous pen, a red inked intention,
when I know in every basement of every old house
are the shrunken bodies of sewing rooms
surrounded by mirrors- where you can get lost in yourself
just planning which shade of green you'll wear,
a torn, moldy shroud,
or which model you'll be.