she was a
real
crazy bitch. but
not in any
respectable way.
she never did any-
thing gutsy or
strong when she
was losing it.
she just moped
around a lot, the
skin around her eyes
very pink and wet.
for about three days
once she sat in the
hall outside my apartment
staring at the dirty line
where the wall
hit
the
floor. i left some
toast and a beer
out in the hall
next to her
before i went to bed
and again before leaving
in the morning for
work. whenever
i checked they were gone,
but there were a
lot of hungry people
in the building so it might
not have been
her. at
about 3am the third night
i sat down across
from her. she lifted her
head a little; "i've got to be the
saddest person you've ever seen."
she wanted me
to say yes,
which seemed really
stupid to
me. but i under-
stood it, too. there
was nothing else special
about her. nobody
remembered her
for anything. nobody
had ever written
a poem about
her. so i told her
yes and she crawled
into my room and fell
asleep on the carpet.
then i wrote this poem.
she'd probably want
me to say her
name was Rose or Angela
or maybe Mary, but
the truth is her name is
just Amber.
Back.