Naomi Campbell Has Another Bitch Fit,
Or, the Poet Is Caught Panty-Raiding Her Muse

Lindsay Bell

Throw the phone at me, I dare you.
I know you want to tear me apart.
You are the ghost, palimpsestual,
invading the words pale, limp, and incest,
much to my chagrin. I’ve bitten
at you, I admit, as a nun may bite
at her shoulder, to stave the pains
of fasting. You are the word
I think I just said, though I said
nothing. It says I’m roaming,
you chuckle at the receiver,
piece of shit. What drives me to steal
things from you when I cannot
place their value? I took a swatch
of fabric that had clung to your thighs
as you catwalked, thin enough
to slide between the spines of books,
yet it’s only charming gossamer.
You’re fierce, darling. I admit
I’m almost jealous of your bingeing.
What you put down and bring up
comes with such regularity,
my pedantic verse hardly does it
justice – the injections and their
subsequent rejections. Only the body
knows what it needs, and you,
my predatory love, are pure body.
The mind, however, is a bumble-fuck
nightmare, and I’m a fifth century
crackpot, trying to keep time with the spheres.

Lindsay Bell recently received her MFA in Poetry from Columbia College.