PERSON Poem: Life after Bob, by Roy Smith

I wish I had a bosom
I would not put my fishing lures there
Rather, money from a friend for dope or rent
folded like an origami chicken so it would poke and itch
not slide to my belly button
A stash for Belle Lettres, you know, notes from foreign
lovers signed in lipstick kisses

I would need cleavage like suspension bridges
holding things dry from places I’ve not yet been
I would name her, this place of nothing from nothing
more

Pilar, like Hemingway’s boat, a place of refuge
decorated in Christmas stockings, she would have
a temper, like seas trying to rid themselves of salt
and crustaceans

I would let Bob sleep here and cats purring like Bowie
when he was Ziggy stardust

This dress, Victorian, I find myself lanced in and its whalebone
corset cinched above and below hate and men

A bosom to be proud of on parade day
draped in rainbows coffins

We would drink coffee together on some tropical deck
Almost big enough for a kitten or a baby rabbit
to curl into
Something to always pet and pet and pet