katie brunero

Gloria, Gloria,

you are not the ice clinging

to the railing of your parent’s trailer,

nor the slugs that writhe to life

between smoky July and bitter-hot June.

You flip over a body

bristling with five tarot swords;

so what? Life is not all peonies in spring. It gets cut

short by the yellow rush of a taxi, falling pianos,

cancer from everything, even cake.

And our hearts have the right

to pound loud if they want.

Let’s live! Get up! Gloria, get up!

Let’s go sneak shots of the chapel’s blessing water—

you can taste the guilt, it tastes good.

It goes down easier than I ever believed.

I remember you were, in fact,

a little stupid that time at your father’s liquor cabinet,

shaking the Goldschlager,

insisting the flakes were real,

would make us rich if we could swallow them.