Kathleen Kirk

One Sentence in Three Places

A white curtain
blows into the room
from the open
window, an image
Xed out
by poets
who do not see
my mother on the bed
with her lover

*
poised

on the handle
of the Devil’s Teacup

*
her skin waxen,
yellow, the color of joy
elsewhere,
not inside this mahogany
room,
laid on this white satin.

Kathleen Kirk loves this poem, and it also scares her (almost) to death.