I am mired in tendrils of regret
Borne of moments and cold midnights
Drunken decisions and bad sex.
I read ‘daddy’ in the bath
In the silent pre-dawn
Curls of steam vying
With death and depression.
Sylvia, your edges are
Translucent as lampshades.
You are my mirror,
My Dorian Gray,
My painting,
My eye.
Bend my ear,
O you dead poets.
You for whom the world
Burned too bright.
You Kerouac, You Plath,
You Ginsberg, You Whitman,
You Parker.
I am empty, empty.
No fecundity, no child mine.
I am vacant. I stumble through
Today in a mist.