Contralto—A Ghazal, Taylor Rose Elliott

by Taylor Rose Elliott

In the room, the women, they came and they went, Draping themselves over chairs, over mouths, over men

Keeping cigars in the gun drawer till the moment when, Boys can be boys, gin will be gin, men can be men.

All of us take notion emotions as law every now and again, Dancing on rooftops, bending over pool tables, chatting up the men.

All of us, gloveless and alone, want a walk home, every now and again, But I fear they know I’m no good, maybe we lost the last of the lying gentlemen.

Still in the room the women, they came again and again, Draping myself over the mantle like a clock, screaming, I’m done with men

Biting off the tips of cigars, crashing new cars, then the rain starts falling amen Falling like a drum on the roof of the heads of three-piece business men. Tonight, I might crawl into a coffin with just my split ends and my fountain pen While God grows shade trees over His meadows over Our ashes, over the heads of His men

To get stronger, to start over, over and over and over again Sinning to win, screaming could we be more than useless, mortal men?

The placebo addiction, the act of saying yes, over and over and over again; You know you’re no good, hearing no, and no, again, and again, from the men. When it all burns down, pick my jewelry from the ash for the next of kin, Whoever that is to keep it out of the hands of the mortuary men

When I get lost in the sound, please remember the years when I sang like a carolina wren, The years we waltzed around the battlefield, closing eyelids for the murdered men. Before her 27th year, before the love addiction and 416mg blood Infatuation, I was Amy Winehouse, 25 with raven wings, singing shadows over these music men.

Promise me, when our rants are relapsed and I remain a slumped and sloppy omen, That you’ll pretend we won, disappeared into the sun, the first ever unmedicated men.