i’ll be your mirror

by Clara Sarett

Andy’s doing soup cans

because why not & I’m loving

cult films like Night of the Living

Dead & I don’t know why I’m

exploding over Nico’s

forlorn Factory Euro-

glamor and oh your

Heroin I don’t know why

I must be everyone’s mirror

just taking in the entire

kingdom or why I must keep

looking at all the sad

mothers asleep as sweet

needle-marked boys go

on the run I don’t know why

phantom pain is never

quick why the limb

refuses defeat or why

slouching toward the

Tenderloin why from deep

under a blanket your

voice is a razor blade of

words you made me keep &

xerox I only know

yesterday in this burnt-out

zone your light is still on.

Photo of Clara Sarett

BIO: Carla Sarett’s latest poetry chapbook, Any Excuse for a Party, is out from Bainbridge Island Press. She has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best American Essays, Best Microfictions and Best of Net. Carla serves as Contributing Editor for New Verse Review; and earned her PhD from University of Pennsylvania. She is currently based in San Francisco.