Lynne Thompson: In this version, a teardrop

under a telescope, reveals a life
of finesse and shorn roses, unfolds
years lived unincorporated, lets it
slip that this life is the opposite of
lying on the ground, explains to
the passersby that it feels a little fine
like the powder of rare cocaine or
blush on a young girl’s face, admits
an incinerator would be small relief.
Tell them, tear, you are finished and
they should chuckle like old men who
stand between stanzas and a widow’s
Social Security check. Say this life isn’t
rubbed down. Just flesh, that phantom.

~~~~~

Copyright 2024 Lynne Thompson

Lynne Thompson was the 4th Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles. The daughter of Caribbean immigrants, her poetry collections include Beg No Pardon (2007), winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award; Start With A Small Guitar (2013), from What Books Press; and Fretwork (2019), winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize.