A Story

by Melissa Green

Pre-Raphaelite hair, a little black dress
and fuck-me pumps, my poems drawing
actors, dancers, painters to my Village digs,
books, opera tickets, the Met.
Someone else is living the life I thought I’d get.

When I whistle, a white horse
in Central Park lifts its head, wickering.
I lie down like Nebucadnezzer to graze.
My lips kissing a subway grate
five hundred miles away, years too late,
a forelock whisks my cheek.

 

Melissa Green’s book of poetry, The Squanicook Eclogues (W. W. Norton, 1987) won the Norma Farber First Book Award and the Peter B. Lavan Younger Poets Award. Her second book, a memoir, Color Is the Suffering of Light, was published by W. W. Norton, Inc., in 1995. (1/2007)