Self-Secretariat (Poem)
Portfolio: Ithaca College's Distinguished Visiting Writers' Master Class with Thomas Sayers EllisPublished in collection of student work, Collage Comics
Self-Secretariat
One foot in front of the other.
Best one first, best one second, third—
don’t stumble, don’t trip in stolen glass slippers and ruin a perfect finish:
keep your toes garnished in coconut polish.
Keep your head held high, eyes on target,
deadlines locked, hedges trimmed, eyelashes
curled for kisses.
Load, reload, rewrite, free-write, scrap, wrinkle
break.
Sean said ginger hair always looks better
tangled up in fingertips,
not spritzed in vanilla-scented spirals,but
fussed with, fucked with,
left alone. Don’t, I say, do not
tie it up, shut it in, push-and-pull or
cut.
Beneath a paper doll’s sugar-breath
is the thick mix of caramel and nuts—
a whiskey sour sweetheart tastes of pavement crumbs, dirt,
grass and weeds and dust and salted
iron.