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.
