TWO POEMS

M. Elizabeth Scott

Beautiful Women and the Men Who Murder Them

Greetings from the joy state

where self-deprecation

is adorable

and God points the finger

neither right nor left

"Everything must die,"

and I sat and I watched for it

as pink as garbage, yes

yesterday

under the auspices

of Linda Kasabian

You and I feign kindness

and though it stings

I ring your little bell

the two of us

chasing these fat tails

Cosí fan tutte

To prolong the inevitable

gangrene of sex

Your ripe hangings

the fuss

of yesterday

Like anyone

I long to be a man

In love

to laugh at my indifference

like anyone

groomed to forget

To sow clinical words

into seminal texts

Intends

a correction of faith

Whether this memory

has your attention

Or

Like a jackrabbit

in a hole

'all women do it'

So I ask God

to spit in my mouth

His saliva so thin

that it floats

Amid a solitude

capable

of multiplying itself

Tonight the irony

of her name

does not escape me

M. Elizabeth Scott is a poet and esotericist based in New York. She is the co-founder of arts collective Cixous72 and its derivative imprint, 72 Press.