pretty red heart

after Sylvia Plath

Yes, it was bitten in two.¹
All girls know that
raw, bloody slash. 

I had my own vampire²
drooling after the scent,
my own musky marauders.

Fueled by father issues,³
I let them into my private
little cocoon – oh yes, 

I lived in that black shoe⁴
just about thirty years, too,
before rooting out the rotten

ghastly gray toe. His ego
was as big as a liquor store
near the freakish Atlantic, 

pouring proletarian Budweiser⁵
over baked beans and brown bread,
our New England staples of yore.

All the times I gave myself away;
the flowery bedspread covered in gore,
my one-night stands multiplying fast.

In numerous photos he stands
at the bar with beers, beers, beers –
Pops, I thought every drunk was you.⁶

¹ Rather, ripped and ravaged.

² Excuse me, vampires, plural.

³ Narcissist more than Nazi.

⁴ Doc Martens, to be specific.

⁵ That golden swill, his brew (I drank it, too).

⁶ Ach, du.

Lauren Tivey is the author of four chapbooks, most recently Moroccan Holiday (winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2019). Her full-length collection is Traveler in the Sunset Clouds (Main Street Rag 2022), and her hybrid poetry/photography collaboration is Fire Carousel (Main Street Rag 2023). Her work appears in Split Lip Magazine, Connotation Press, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Grimoire, among other places. She teaches creative writing at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.