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For Nobody
Jared Sexton
A man in a blue-pinstriped suit,
missing his right ring finger,
once told me,
in the coat room of the American Legion,
“Never tell a lady that she is a bad lay,”
so,
sensitive,
novel,
misled girl,
consider my tongue bitten.
In Nashville, TN, home of white-haired wrists
gripping steering wheels,
running green lights with Confederate guilt,
I believe you’d be at home,
nodding your scalped head in rhythm
to unsigned, uninspireds in dolly bar rooms,
maybe an apartment,
a flat – more your speed –
serving rare spirits,
pirated labels,
corks upon your floor,
wine on your stained ceilings,
what a delightful hostess you’d be if once,
delightful Yankee girl,
you breathed and let silence be.
And your dishes, the pots, the pans,
the testaments to your reviled sloth,
proof in their columns of your hatred
for black Jesus,
cocoa buttered prayers
you laugh, a fag dangling from your tireless lips,
and how busy you must be,
how busy the adulterers are,
and I ask
hand across my heart
preserve the Union, in what
parking lot
studio
or foreign bed
will you fuck tonight?
JY Sexton is a second year MFA student at the University of Southern Illinois. He is currently busy writing his first novel, reinventing the thumbtack, and solving the worldwide epidemic of unattractive persons. He is just as concerned as you are.
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