They quiz her, the two bards, as if she is a liar, her
suicidal ideation fascinates them, cigarette smoke
swirls toward the ceiling and she wears a sundress with
patterns like Picasso. She reads her famous poems,
pushing up her eyeglasses. In one, she was too ill
with madness to take care of her daughter. Suicide always
on the runway like Burt Parks and his Miss America Pageant.
Jump! No, she will not jump.
Pills! No, she will not die of pills.
It’s the terrible “locked in the garage” till you die.
She, blackened, like the burnt pancakes in the griddle.