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Self-Secretariat (Poem)

Published on Portfolio: Ithaca College's Distinguished Visiting Writers' Master Class with Thomas Sayers Ellis
Published 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.