Sleeping at The Plaza
There were tiny hounds sniffing out their gilded cages. Fireplaces chaste, unlit and beds soft as the pears I ate from palms outstreched. The hem of my dress was wet from the fountain and finally it lay on the floor like the slick blue skin of a fish. We danced silver as a shiny hook. I heard them clap: red nails flashing smiles. One misplaced kiss, one eye shut. The concierge bald and fat, cuddling his little pink prick. The elevator stuck. The city was singing. Someone was taking pictures. My legs splintered at the hips, and that night New York wrecked and swelled inside me. A beautiful girl is a great storm, slapped around by the hands of her own desire. She lifts up the green skirt of Central Park, wading twelve floors below, and wishes once more for coachmen and carriage: to be salt and tear in the horse’s eye, to dissolve beneath his blinders.
Poem from The Drowned Girl, reprinted with permission of Kent State University Press