Rapunzel Under Care
Years full
of eyes
looking for the well hidden,
like Gretel, dead
of cirrhosis at forty,
and nobody knowing she drank,
it was said.
The doctor
gives more pills to make
my bones floating balloons,
lips red
coals. The house
needs cleaning and my lover
who calls me emotional
when I curse
likes it neat: another pill.
A blocked road suddenly
open. I've
tried them all
and still it's another
prescription--they know me
at the pharmacy,
at least that's something.
The 2River View, 4_1 (Fall 1999)