Afterloss
I devour a buttery chocolate croissant
from the French Patisserie.
Order a tres leches cake soaked in milks
from the taco place.
Fit into that clingy dress, long slits down either side,
bought four years ago.
Redecorate the living room with a Starry-Night Van Gogh
and a white linen mid-century sofa.
Buy a new Beautyrest king-size mattress
for the master bedroom,
and after two shots of Grey Goose vodka,
summon the male
with hearing loss, sloped shoulders, steely Bogart voice,
the one who favors Michelin-starred restaurants
and has little use for poetry,
and claim him.
Harriet Shenkman is a professor emerita at City University of New York and over seventy years old. Their one collection of poetry is Wonder Wheel, recently published by Grayson Press. They are a first generation American born in Brooklyn.
The Marbled Sigh 