by Mindi Greenway

The day was knocking people down
with wind, and I was feeling a bit
like a sociopath, perfectly impenetrable
through the parking lot.
Black heels, thigh highs can only conjure
the image of sex,
but I’m a horror to love,
careening through all sorts of weather
toward everyone at once, exhausted.
I still sleep in the fetal position
because I believe
I’ve not been properly born,
too much fire on this breath,
some spice measured twice
in my genetic brew,
which explains why I never call
my mother (not even on Sunday),
because I don’t care what happens there,
or here, where my husband pencils in
sex at six, but I’ve never made love
to anyone, pressed against a perfect chest
past midnight, which is fine,
because my soul mate lives on Mars,
spends his days hanging ten
on sand dunes made by windstreaks,
so he sees me only
for the obligatory orgasms,
signs some forms,
vanishes to stratosphere.
I’ve never wanted his pity,
or the pity
of the fifty men I’ve fucked
who never knew my favorite color,
orange, that I light cigarettes for glow
and smoke, the magic of it all,
that I wasn’t always the naked lady
popping from party cakes
to please people,
that, once, long ago,
I wanted someone to talk to me,
not of high end physics, or the hazards
of the space-time continuum.
Just conversation.
What strange weather we’re having,
maybe, when I see a friend,
crouched, crying over some loss or other,
and all I can do is let her tears
twist into breeze,
hold her head up
with my cold, cold shoulder.

Mindi Greenway’s book, “Song of the Rest of Us,” was published by Kent State University Press in 2010. Also, her work has been anthologized by two presses, including Kent State Press. She has won The Whiskey Island Poetry Prize, judged by Denise Duhamel, and The Wick Poetry Prize, judged by Jim Daniels. Her poetry appears on working-class blogs for many colleges and universities, and has been on display at The Pennsylvania State University during an Arts Festival. In addition, her poems can be found in The Mayo Review, Eclipse, Arsenic Lobster, Perigee, and others.