She left me to the beer-stink,
against the billed wall, with
thin straws, ice sweat, ribbed
cups I nursed as she wandered.
It worked, and beautifully.
All those women, bent to shoot,
felted beds beneath them, eyes
on her. Her imagined hip, thick
thigh, bow tie neat as un-boiled pasta.
My eyes on those women. Was it
her attention I wanted or theirs.
Her nipples were door knockers, rings
held tightly within the brass lions’
mouths. A hollow song, but a song.
Katherine Fallon received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and teaches in the Department of Writing & Linguistics at Georgia Southern University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Meridian, Rogue Agent, Passages North, Permafrost, Colorado Review, and more. Her chapbook, The Toothmakers’ Daughters, is available through Finishing Line Press.