By Dorothy Lune
My liquid center is Opium—
I left bed with a sticky note
to do my taxes, this morning I had a cowlike & you
compare it to a brown grape vine /
in the vicinity of Nefertiti.
Welcome to womanhood— of all things to return it is this,
my every word a separate incantation:
iodine, it’s violet vapor,
balcony door swings back, bed: I’m not sure who you
are tonight / but I’m Cleopatra.
When I ruminate on this I
know it’s unrewarding— like a day spent whistling
lullabies & dreaming, I’ve associated
songs with you before—
purpose unfound / written on the back of a bank note.
Dorothy Lune is a Yorta Yorta poet, born in Australia. Her work has appeared in Pinhole Poetry & more. She is compiling a manuscript, can be found online @dorothylune, & has a substack: https://dorothylune.substack.com/
