On the Muse's Departure by Train
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with you.
It was all sex, sex, sex.
She knew how you imagined her:
backlit, stockings askew,
pausing in the midst
of rebuttoning
her nightgown or blouse.
She knew you lay awake at night,
listening to her sigh
into her pillow.
She knew you waited
to see what form
her next refusal might take.
Let us be friends.
I have no desire, it seems.
For you, I mean.
How could you expect
to be the only one
when there are so many others
and most of them younger?
The moon,
no matter how you love it,
is still the moon.
--------
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Poetry by Michelle Y. Burke
A variation on a theme by Donald Justice
She was not happywith you.
It was all sex, sex, sex.
She knew how you imagined her:
backlit, stockings askew,
pausing in the midst
of rebuttoning
her nightgown or blouse.
She knew you lay awake at night,
listening to her sigh
into her pillow.
She knew you waited
to see what form
her next refusal might take.
Let us be friends.
I have no desire, it seems.
For you, I mean.
How could you expect
to be the only one
when there are so many others
and most of them younger?
The moon,
no matter how you love it,
is still the moon.
--------
After earning her MFA from Ohio State University in 2007, Michelle Y. Burke moved to New York City where she taught for three years. She’s recently returned to Ohio to attend the University of Cincinnati, where she’s pursuing a PhD in English and Comparative Literature. Her poems have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Lake Effect, New Orleans Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Yemessee. Her chapbook, Horse Loquela, the winner of the 2007 Red Mountain Review Chapbook Series Award, was published by the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
Volume 1, Issue 3 Back to top
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