Lone Star Clattering
By Denise Riley
What got done to me stains
through my hopes of passing
as fully human — though my
“bad blood” won’t gloss that;
to canter around its crimson
rosette would tart up a harm
more my postwar bad luck
than a told shame’s mother.
Still, the pose: Say yellow rose
go hard & plain to Amarillo.
They have shot me down!
Yet do I rise, a tad orange.
Notes:
This poem originally appeared in The Poetry Review. You can read the other poems in this exchange in the May 2017 issue.
Source: Poetry (May 2017)