Operation Betty Boop
No curfew. No handsome stranger.
No spotless woman— a serenic a winsome
is like a homicide: a street of poppies
& an auctioneer at the curb in between,
who's to say I'm priceless nor priceful—
who's to say I'm integral to a land.
The wise men [love] my squeaky meows
for help, my insinuating blinks for
help, insinuating a homicide: echo
in the curb gutter, my stiletto is in your
eye socket like an ice pick or pinprick.
No prince. No sense of royalty at that.
No spotless tiara— at this curb there is
a second of me that sings like detonations,
but of what, that I don't know— I know
a second soul or set of hips that slink,
behind, or beside, or in front of me.
You ask me what
I'd want the after life to be. Omit your phobia
of your life not being long or your life
not just starting now, though—
it would be lovely to abandon
calories & capitalism, & if reincarnation is real
I could suffice as a jewel scarab beetle,
feared, gorgeous, & reflective enough.
I think of my life in decades
thanks to the internet's advice— my 20s for art,
my 30s for a baby & art, my internet technician informs
me I would be just as beautiful as a chip of flint
as I am in human form— I ask why Rakes
wear a gray uniform. Chatter in my wardrobe,
sun leaning in, peel back a band-aid from my back—
am I a part of my mother's life or hers a part
of mine— & does she recognise fulfillment?
Next year I will move abroad, France—
surely, that would upset me
in her shoes: damp boot outlives floods.
Surely, I would reflect a broken-wing if
I was a jewel scarab beetle, like a wardrobe sliding
mirror door, she sits to change
her square band-aid. Adult children owe
nothing to their parents, regardless I scrub at those
lavender sprigs that almost poke my skin
like emergency veins— tongue-tied, then I tell you
I am tongue-tied. Of all the salted walls
of my child-life, squeamish & pinkish like tongues.
Dorothy Lune is a Yorta Yorta poet, born in Australia. Her poems have won the Furphy literary prize twice, her work has appeared in Overland journal, Litro magazine, Many Nice Donkeys & more. She is looking to publish her manuscripts, can be found online @dorothylune, & has a substack: https://dorothylune.substack.com/