I Get Why Dorothy Parker Gave All Her Money to the NAACP
       

Tired writer she was at the end,
of all the hustle, the bait and switches.
Still, she bit with the best, the nag apple
turned to gold in her liquored, equine
teeth. She knew how rigged,
how fixed the game for those not looking
like the Easter Bunny dipped them in
powdered sugar at birth. Before being
pulled from the mountain pass
of a mother's legs, as we all are, hauled
out like little row boats from the womb's
mystical barge. In case someone's
forgotten. That, and how many forced
to dark baptisms at sea. Convenient mind
slips, the status quo. But not Parker,
who recognized it begins with blood smear
and a cry, and whatever technician's weighing
and prick, metal settling you into
the collective river, the fire of time. Cool water,
flames high. Who said who could decide
which names would burn—(What fresh hell is this)
which faces replicate, multiply?

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from Sugar House Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission