of defeat
By Glenn Ingersoll
I said she didn’t have slender ankles, and she really took offense.
Three washings and still under my fingernails the smell of September.
It was fun. It continued to be fun. Then it was not fun at all.
Butch and Candy.
She went carefully over what good standing requires.
The last of the rain-fed blossoms crumples up brown.
I can’t sleep every night! Not every night!
The two rivers, once together, travel on as two rivers.
She must be on her favorite street in Paris,
painting people now her friends.
What was supposed to be walked on fell off.
If I am your enemy, it is because you are desperate for enemies.
About the author:
Glenn Ingersoll works for the public library in Berkeley, California where he hosts Clearly Meant, a reading & interview series. He has two chapbooks, City Walks (broken boulder) and Fact (Avantacular). He keeps two blogs, LoveSettlement and Dare I Read. Recent work has appeared in The Opiate, Dodging the Rain, and First Literary Review East.
