That summer I sat around
reading
the coupon catalogues

a couple’s retreat
advertised discounts
on Chalet rooms

each had a private pool
with a slide
I wanted

to host a birthday party
not thinking
about intimacy

and still I don’t
in poems you host
get togethers

the bread basket
absent from the table

I ate the rolls
in the kitchen
I’d never manage

to vomit O this fast
life a mermaid flops
on a slimy rock Medusa

sings around you the senses
marred, song
recollecting

broken into minor bodies
the deaf waiter
the blind piano tuner
the overture of two

straddling, unkinking

Satan the rusted wheel
Lucifer the skeins of your hair
take me
to the Chalet suite
my life a kind shame

undigested and elliptical
knowledgeable but behind

I moved on
years ago, saying yes
pulling up my hair

Margaret Saigh (she/her) is a recent graduate of Oberlin College, currently living in Chicago, Illinois. Find her on Instagram @chillable.red.