ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Stephanie Kaylor is a writer from upstate New York. She holds a MA in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University at Albany and is currently finishing a MA in Philosophy at the European Graduate School. Stephanie is Reviews Editor for Glass: A Journal of Poetry and her poetry has appeared in a number of journals including BlazeVOX, The Willow Review, and altpoetics.
Pinstripes
You opened the door and I wanted
to ask you — what happened?
The last time I saw you was on the
stoop of my Brooklyn summer
sublet shooting shit until
the night ran out before our
half-hearted thoughts or whole-
hearted dreams or even the booze
you made sure I always had plenty
& you had a discount
working the liquor store even though
you were working the law firm
and I laughed about how you got
by just with those three shirts, button-
down, one black one white one
grey, all your belongings in two
backpacks, a guitar case, a sweat-
less set of arms that
didn’t take me but I asked for
until you left one morning
while I slept off a hangover
to go where you needed to
go and leave me to try to find
something or other to take me
too and I cried until I saw
a grey shirt on my chair,
my own I mistook for yours, forgotten,
and I thought it wouldn't be long
until you came back for it
because even if I could never have you
some luck gave me a third of you
and there you were, three months later
in Manhattan, the black-on-white
stripes of a new shirt like slashes upon a
canvas yet stark in their precision
as the new beard you neither shaved
completely nor let run full course
or the distinction between having
and not-having I thought we had
eluded and I wanted to ask you
if you had forgotten
you could add some stripes to a shirt
but that wouldn't make it any warmer.
Instead I said nothing, waiting until
you took it off and I could try to find you,
waiting as you told me to get some
sleep, still waiting as I ran out your door
into the anonymity of the morning
crowds rushing into the cold city stasis
and I slammed it behind me
as if I could have held you back.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
