2 or 3 Things I Know About Her

By Carla Sarett

Upper Madison’s 
rich summer citizens 

sought all breads French 
or perhaps Italian

while I rushed by—
Beckett’s Murphy 

smugly in tow and 
I caught a woman’s 

knowing stare 
for Murphy or for me 

I did not care to know. 
With her mottled skin 

and defiant jowls, 
she had (I felt I knew) 

let herself go, given up 
trying to fight 

something (I felt) 
worse than living.

Carla Sarett is a poet and fiction writer based in San Francisco.  ‘She Has Visions,’ her debut poetry collection, will be published by Main Street Rag Press in Fall 2022; her novel, ‘A Closet Feminist,’ appeared earlier in the year.  Recent poems can be found in Pithead Chapel, Gyroscope, Neologism, One Art, Rock Paper Poem and elsewhere.