For Joan, there are always
simple answers to complex questions.
If a job is stressful -- leave it.
If rent is due and there is no money to pay it,
move out in the middle of the night.
Bad restaurant service is rewarded with food sent back to
the kitchen,
comment card manifestos, or two cent tips.
Bad dates are ended much more abruptly,
ice water poured into laps accomplishes that.
Unsatisfactory hair color leads to more coloring, or - in
certain moments
Sudden homemade modifications -
3 a.m. modifications
Better no hair than that hair, she will say.
I will say
Nothing at all.
She is a cat-eating canary.
I am a man marked for Death.
I have waived all appeals. But still
she sits cross-legged on
my bed,
licking salt from a lemon. Unconcerned.
Joan. Some nights,
I wish
you ugliness.
Your hair of holocaust is not enough for me.
It only makes you Joan of Arc.
etouffee and Evaline