April Sleeps in Velvet by Marie Abate

April has a headache. She doesn’t want to take her pills.
She remembers last night, the tavern on the other side of town
where she had to go to escape everyone, and she found The Poet
in a three-piece suit, and he said, “April, don’t ever change.”
He kissed her hand. Later she slept on her velvet couch
and dreamed of cashmere suits, of poets and longshoremen.
She dreamed of you, too, but in her dream you were covered in mud.
You were in her bed staining her white sheets.
You said, “I’m just a boy. I’m not worth your sonnets.”
She sat crossed legged and listened and then buried herself
in your chest, in your hair, in your mud.
“Stop that!” she cried until she was also covered in mud, until it stuck to her
like clay on her sister’s pottery wheel, and she was spinning
on the bed. You were quiet when you left her. You never said her name.

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About the author: 

Marie Abate is a poet and writer from Baltimore, Md. She has a Masters in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her poetry has recently been published in Weave; Free State Review; Prompt & Circumstance; Old Growth Northwest; The MOM Egg; Smile Hon, You’re in Baltimore; Short, Fast, and Deadly; and the Sewanee Theological Review. She was recently named “Best Local Poet in Baltimore” by CBS News. Her first poetry collection will be published by Aldrich Press in November 2014.

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