Trashing the Vice

Seriously, just take
your red cloak and
shove it
because I’m done
searching the path
for your legs. I’m
finished with the way
your curls frame you, done
imagining your Mary Janes
under
me. I’ve completed
what’s been expected of
me, the solicitation,
the dirty flight through
the wood, the unfathomable
case of mistaken identity
that comes with desire.

I’m shaming you, girl,
because you’re ready
to give me your jam,
your muffins, your wine,
the whole goddamn
basket slung over an arm
that says, “I have freckles
and the way they sit on
my skin is of story books
and Vogue.”

In the aftermath of my
time with you I’ve seen
how I must look to the ages.
How unbent, how unburnt,
how silly of me to notice.

Sarah Ghoshal‘s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Arsenic Lobster, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Empty Mirror, Red Savina Review and Broad! Magazine, among others. Her chapbook, Changing the Grid, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She earned her MFA from Long Island University and teaches at Montclair State University. Sarah lives in New Jersey with her husband, her ten month old daughter and her dog Comet, who flies through the air with the greatest of ease.