Go ahead, then. You go live in a decrepit
turret. Buy a cabochon-encrusted comb
and a $50 boar-hair brush. Coif a lot
and bang a drum, eat loaves and plums
and call yourself Allegra Folaam,
glide around in pleated chiffon
and write the very best, most burning lines
in cursive with a fountain pen
on artisan paper pressed with phlox,
given to you by a lover. Just linger
at the window there; he’ll squeal up
in aubergine (Porche, ’74) till he doesn’t
and you’re waiting with your peonies
and peeling walls, Pall Malls, a hive
of local humans buzzing in, their mouths
making sounds, saying Where’s your bathroom?
Want some ramen? Why’s there no AC?
then snoring on your couch. And you—
with your doubts and piles of thesis,
Diet Pepsis, all those talking faces—well,
I think we know who’d haul right off and jump
from the turret to the gulley in the back
to coax the chipmunks from the weeds
and palm the delicate yellow birds
till she just stops, then gets delivered
to a place where she can think in lines
and color when she cries and take her SSRIs
to keep her heart from flapping around
like a mauled flower from Brazil
and learn to walk an inch, then one more,
can ponder a quiet room, a solid door,
and know that turrets are a fraud,
and so is aubergine, and that alone
is just a thing she might let in.
