The sun shattered across the sky
like a liquor bottle over a bald head.
San Francisco was pockmarked and absurd
couldn’t tell if it was day or night
I checked other.
The subway is more like the ocean than the subway today,
the trains advance and recess.
As for myself, I have been doing more of the latter.
The Wild Side, Saturday, 3 AM
The wild side can be located exactly four blocks east
of St. Mary’s Cathedral.
I worked there for a few months just after moving
to San Francisco.
Glassy-eyed whores prayed while nobody watched,
junkies got well,
and a man waited until we were alone to ask if I thought
he was hopeless.
I told him it’s never too late
(I told him this but, you know, I never meant it).
I’ve heard that I look like daughters and mothers and
ex-wives, the truth is,
people see who they want to see.
I’ve seen Polaroids of children on the insides of wallets
from which I took sixty bucks.
I tucked the money into my garter
because I’m someone’s child too
and then I took a taxi to the Cathedral.
Enter Esme, Friday, 11 PM
Esme hosted parties
that would go on for days.
Esme
almost always fully nude
and almost always covered in ink.
She affected everything she touched.
One day I saw her
and she was plastered with blue paint
it dripped off her nose and eyelashes
another day it was shaving cream
and when she got evicted
her parties moved onto the street outside.
She said a lot of bullshit
and a few true things which is preferable
to those who say a lot of bullshit
and no true things.
She once married seven people
at the same time.
She would marry anyone who asked.
She loved saying yes.
The End of Men, Wednesday, Unknown Time
Masculine like a boy and
feminine like a cold planet
colliding with another,
big blue waves
rolling along pale bodies,
rolling two fingers
around a slick marble,
as big as a planet
as massive as love
and as small as the small
of your back.
I know that the world is not good
but is profoundly exciting
and love never leaves me for long.
Valentina Reetz is originally from Seattle and now resides in Los Angeles. She holds a degree in philosophy. Her work has been featured in publications like Shameless Magazine, Beast Grrrl and Argyle Literary Magazine.
