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Natalie Tombasco: “Q-Train”

August 14, 2019 by PBQ Leave a Comment

 

 

Q-TRAIN

                     Nigel Van Wieck, 1990

Half-note, hairpin—pungent, dried-up sexpot
on the orange & yellow seats, slumped in thought.

The night critters are her only friends & enemies.
Lonely, lovelorn moonbeam—washed-out redhead.

Sundown, daybreak—sleepwalk, pass-out. Wake up
to a strange man’s hand, the taxi-cab rhapsody—

5 a.m. halal truck, bodega. This is the subway sutra:
late night transfer, merlot smoulder. Tsk-tsk,

suckteeth, eyeroll, spread-legged—feral realist:
the muse on the Staten Island ferry drinking

a forty. A white girl’s manifesto begins: I can’t even.
Dog days, young love—gut-punched, wornout mystic.

Putrid midnight, skylines, bloodlines—inside,
she holds a sinkhole, an orchid. The feminist-

approved odalisque—she gives the world the cold
shoulder. This place is trying to ruin her.

Filed Under: Issue 99, Poetry 99

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