Coffee with Marilyn

I sit alone,

liquid inspiration growing cold in my cup.

Hands of the clock try to climb over each other in a race toward my curfew.

Marilyn Monroe falls

from my purse into the seat across from me. She lights a cigarette

and asks if there are any romantics left.

Monochromatic mysteries evolve into conversations that split into tangents

with no map to find our way back.

So we flow,

from Poe to football and back again.

Marilyn likes Baltimore,

but mainly for their colors.




Standing on revelation's precipice, interrupted

by a refill from a waltzing waitress, she says to call her Isadora,

but I prefer Ms. Duncan. And

her scarf flows behind her as she leaves, wrapping loosely around my neck

as I spoke the silence of my words. Marilyn lost interest,

like in love,

fickle, fragile, and fleeting,

she rises to leave,

grabs the change into pills,

and walks into history.

My hunger of nothing builds and burns me

like hot soup on a sick tongue. From the kitchen

I hear Sylvia Plath yell that my order is up,

and she'll clean the damn oven before she leaves.