Pleading with Big Pussy
to not betray me though
I have been betrayed before
by so many men with so many
problems and maybe I am just
a little bit insecure.
My robe falling off me as I wade
into the swimming pool with water
birds and maybe I am a little bit in love
with Christopher and Paulie
and maybe I too wear my tracksuits
on days I need to feel the texture
of velour and maybe I just need
to tell my therapist about
the long line of dangerous men
that came before me
like the spaghetti that needs
to be thrown against a wall
to know when it is done,
my grandmother’s hair sticking
to brown tile, wet and golden.
I am back in the pool
and there is nothing you can say
to make these birds fly again.
Luisa Muradyan is originally from Ukraine and received her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. She is the author of American Radiance (Univ of Nebraska Press), which won the 2017 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. She is also a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and non-binary authors from the former Soviet Union. Additional poems can be found at the Threepenny Review, Copper Nickel, the Missouri Review and Poetry London among others.