Face for Radio
Dora Malech
As usual I am unusually tired.
All night my fingers double-crossed me,
tangled up in someone else’s hair.
Breakfast is sand with a promise of pearls.
If I were an operation, I’d be fly-by-night
and very bloody. If I were a sow,
I’d be hog-tied. I was born under
the sign of the toy breed, the yapper,
if you will—and I will—on the cusp
of bikini season. Somersaults,
cartwheels. Call me poorly executed.
Call me late for dinner and a regrettable
houseguest, wet towel on the bed.
Call me go-getter, meaning going going gone.
If anyone needs me I’ll be at the arcade
across from the fire station, shooting
the teeth off the cardboard clown.
If you give me a dollar I’ll take
my top off and let you see my heart.
Dora Malech is a Glenn Schaeffer Poetry
Fellow currently teaching at Victoria University in Wellington,
New Zealand. Her poems have appeared recently in
Black Warrior Review and American Letters & Commentary.
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