After Not Writing Poems For Three Months, Le Jennifer Remembers She Once Made a Palace From Blankets

Le Jennifer once walked into a palace
Made of blankets – she was a child –
And there was a stone on the floor.

She was a child, and there was a stone on the floor.

She prayed to a stone.
She made a stone in memoriam.
She crawled into a ball and scratched
Her pink mosquito-nibbled skin
And wondered to the god who was a stone

Can I go home once I’ve spoken
To Prince Tandem? Prince Tandem, whose name
I’ve only just invented, does blank verse
Mean a thing to you?

Or do you swim in these here blankets?
What’s a girl but a thing to you?
When you vanish does your seat get cold?

When you fall out of love, does a crow
Shit on the fence, or more majestic than that?

Le Jennifer grows up. She spots an angel
On her window sill. She makes pretend
She has never masturbated before. I think
There is a growth on my arm, she thinks.

It’s black! There’s a hair! What a mirror
Won’t do for you, a bible will. If Le Jennifer
Were a religious poet, she would embrace silence.
I used to adore Mallarme, she thinks in middle-age,

But he’s so French, and I never understood
A word he said. Perhaps I’ll go back to writing poetry.
The kind where I once murdered a girl in my sleep.

That girl was me! That girl was me!
She was a child, and there was a stone on the floor!