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"Lady Liberty arrives belting Bruce Springsteen" by Julianna Reidell



and by the time we order drinks she’s lit two cigarettes.

 

She says,

(while breathing in smoke from

harbor fires),

 

Glo-ree days!

Says,

I’m trying to quit.

​​​Exhale.

 

Did anyone ever tell you, that with your eyes

silver and gold like that, they look like

coins? Like,

I could scoop ‘em out and plunk them in my pocket

and they’d jingle? You should know

that you’re not the first — or, there’s been hundreds

of firsts

who thought they could make

me right.

 

For example: I sometimes act a little too much

like my daddy. I’ve got wiles

to drive a man wild, and I often use ‘em

to burn.

Sometimes I’m burning, and

I never met a history book that didn’t make me cry.

Sometimes I powder my hair, and

did you know

that I got “collateral damage” tattooed across my inner thigh?

Do you wanna see?

 

… Slow down, boy!

 

Have you ever held someone who looked like you? A girl disappeared

from this place, right after we kissed

behind the jukebox — that old dinosaur, that old relic. I was high.

They probably got her bones scattered across Appalachia by now,

and she’s making things grow, or else

she hit-and-run to Hawaii

trying to get away from me as best she can.

God Bless Her, either way. A toast!

 

And down goes a gulp of

Diet Coke — her lips,

mine.

 

I wonder sometimes

what museum they’ll put me in.

Once

I wrapped bandages around my chest — up&up —

and it felt kinda good, until I started seeing shades of

mummification. I’m past my peak. There’s no future here. And I thought,

Fossilize me.

 

What the hell.

 

Sometimes I act too much like my daddy. I deny the influence of prescription pills. I don’t cut myself-

I just rust.

But I don’t read either.

 

She takes a bite of a burger,

and breathes out smoke.

 

Ever been to France? There, they call me

La Liberté éclairant le monde — and I think

that’s beautiful. My accent’s kinda good, huh? My mama got kicked

hard, in the gut before I was born

And maybe that’s why it all turned out the way it did.

Did anyone ever tell you that your eyes, silver and gold,

looks like blood money? You can love me —

 

believe me, honey, I’m wide open —

 

but once day these acrylics will stop piercing your hands, and I’ll topple

down, down, into the harbor and she’ll welcome me home.

She’s tasteful.

 

I’ll sleep.

 

But until then—

 

I toss

blood-money bills on the countertop of justice as Liberty

             lights another match,

             licks out, and

             swallows it whole.

 

But until then — hell, we got time. C’mon, new-moon sucker — let’s light

a fire, pummel

the highway, make the National Parks fear

to god. Let’s end up laughing

on a slab. let’s hit the road.

 



Julianna Reidell is an undergraduate English and French major at Arcadia University. Her work can be found in two anthologies by Moonstone Press, Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, Sword and Kettle Press’s “Farewell, Neverland,” and issues of her university’s literary magazine, Quiddity.

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