Love Poem for Bathsheba
In the very oddest picture
There is a split
On one side, a girl with a blank expression
On the other, a girl with a smile
That is maniacal
She is the same girl
There is a mirror
The smiling face
In the reflection
It's so odd
One girl, made into two
I ask myself
And do not say
The question aloud
For fear that they will hear me
All this talk about haunted spaces
But it’s the body
That's haunted
With double dreams
And double doors
The double-cream
It's the silly truth that's haunted
And when I couldn't speak I spoke
And when I couldn't wake I woke
And when I couldn't hear her anymore
That grating voice
She was gone
Bathsheba Sherman
Bathsheba Sherman
In the movie of you
They made you a jew
Always a jew
When you want a cunt of pure evil
When only an evil cunt will do
People, sure why not
Why not why not
Always make her a jew
With her Lokshen kugel
With her taroc pack
With her taroc pack
With her ich ich ich
Bathsheba they hung you
Baby, they'll hang me, too
Me and you
Who is that?
Who is that?
It's us
Dumb face
Arms filled with blue
No who is that
It's not us
It's me and you
It's me and you
When only a really evil cunt will do
That's the mistake
The world makes
Pure evil, brute evil
Through and through
Oh who is that
Who is that
The one in the doorway
Face coming through
That's the mistake
The world makes
Dumb face
That's us
Oh who is that
Who is that
That's me and you
That's me and you
Copyright Credit: Dorothea Lasky, "Love Poem for Bathsheba" from Milk. Copyright © 2018 by Dorothea Lasky. Reprinted by permission of the author and Wave Books.
Source: Milk (Wave Books, 2018)