She Talks To Angels

My new poem, “She Talks to Angels,” is the result of a time crunch, required word use, and, well, missing a dear friend. This year’s outcome of Contemporary Verse 2’s 2-Day Poem contest left me with a piece that brings tears to my eyes and laughter to my heart.

She Talks to Angels

I dream of you.

We are in a log cabin on the lake and you still have your birth face: softly curved cheeks
moon-white nose, pale amidst a sky of freckles, red welts and blemishes, long eyelashes
you smear smoked salmon-flavored cream cheese on crackers at the counter and look at me
mouth full (the sound of your lips smacking and talking at once, as memorable as your laugh)
and say, how would it make you feel if someone did that to you?
there is a hard-shell suitcase at your feet. You are leaving soon.

You correct me when I use big words, while also being an expert in pet names
for the perineum: gooch, grundle, chode, taint
*PhD notwithstanding
I think you meant “sympathy”
you’d comment, after I’d used “empathy” in a sentence
me, not knowing the difference or the definition to either).

Aggressive nail colors (tangerine, vermilion, kelly green) paired with tacky shades of lipstick
(coral, bubble gum, big apple red)
foundation and sweat rubbing off on the microphone as you sing
”She Talks to Angels” 
”Drops of Jupiter”
and both parts of the duet for “Picture” while the audience speaks beneath their hands
not noticing that you’ll never care. Never have.

Superstitious; a true believer in beginners’ luck and itchy palms, always throwing around gambling advice: burn a card to better the odds and don’t walk in the front door of the house
despite never having been inside a casino
quoting Kenny Rogers as you advise us not to count money at the table
*figuratively, of course; we had no money.

In the bathroom at a bar, you tug your low-rise jeans up over your ass, adjust the quarter inch zipper
and fuss with your tiny breasts (your original tits, not the ones that came later, twice)
I lean on the wall and wait as you sample each angle in the mirror
rummaging through your vocabulary for fancy adjectives in place of “basic:”
they’re all just fucking snowflakes out there, sheep, pushovers, patsies—then
this isn’t the first time you’ve done this, you know? you say                                   
looking back at me, suddenly serious, understanding my pattern before I ever did
and then you laugh
and I laugh with you, even though none of this is funny.