Like a Kennedy, I smiled for a good photo op,
never missed a meeting, sat pretty on my florals
and the ribbons between my thighs.

Young - 16 - with a silvered ring squeezing my babied fingers;
They all loved me - I brought buckets of pastel
to their castle.

My eyes changed the game - I swear -
A million girls wore my eyeliners, my shoes, my dresses -
down to my knickers - how did they know? I’ve not a single clue.

But that all came with his rage. Cris-crossed, arms locked, doors
blocked - can’t escape. Pap-shots, AIDS-clots, hair chopped, tours clocked, dazzling,
dizzying, maddening.

He said “No waistline” so I threw it up in my bowl. Don’t push me.
I would have “No life” if I had
“Thick thighs”. Might as well die alone

in a quiet country home with ballerinas spinning on the telly, saying; ‘I was that
beautiful once’ to my children. Really, I was! Soon, grandchildren playing
paper planes like flowery fighter jets blooming in puffy rolling fields… Only without

the landmines. I wish they’d only be mine. I can see it in their marble eyes -
they don’t know what I’ve seen. Down in black cellars, golden catacombs
of an institution’s design, turning my ocean’s eyes to brown, inky darkness. Never look back.

Soul-snatched. My twenties, robbed by
world tours, his filthy women and
filthier crowns - centuries-old blood sewing stones to gold atop my head.

They don’t know about that woman breathing down my open back, heating my
rhinestone tiaras until the adhesive loosens,
diamonds to ****. Still couldn’t get free of it - even now.

-

When I’m away from the children, out in the blue -
White yachts whisk me to Cannes, Gibraltar, Spain;
The blue only reminds me of them.
My world swivels in their four, wide eye sockets, with turquoise metallic koi swimming
in mine, wide black pupils opening up like a dreamy midsummer night’s sky.

So, what else could I do but ring them twice a day?
How was school? How was math? Don’t stay out too late! But one day I had a hunch -  
I never got to ever make them a hot packed lunch, or iron their laundry

before I saw them off.

In the blinding tunnel, I held on tight,
Wings flashing, waiting for sunlight to
lead me back home -
Either on heaven or on Earth.