Phone Call To Cousin Stacy Poem by Matt Mullins

You are not Lady Godiva looking
through her closet for something
to wear out on the town with your lover
on New Year's Eve, but the daughter
of Uncle Jack in the hip-cast, getting paid
for making lunches and talking weather
in the kitchens of old men convalescing
who know nothing of your ex-nun mother
named for a flower or our dead grandmother
Hazel, whose eyes and name were not
the same color. Even over simple soups
you will never speak of the boys
who've pushed you apart or the words
you've chalked in the dark, those white lines
of desire burning behind your eyelids
like a sign leading you home at night naked
in the glowing cockpit of your car.